1 Kings 17:8-12: in context

During a severe drought, God sends the prophet Elijah to be sustained, and the means of provision is surprising. Go to Zarephath, God says, for I have commanded a widow there to sustain you. When Elijah arrives, he finds a widow so destitute that she is gathering a few sticks to bake a last meal for herself and her son before they die. I have nothing baked, she tells him, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil. God had chosen to provide for his prophet through a woman who had almost nothing herself.

God's choice of means here is striking. Elijah needed sustenance during the famine, and God could have provided it in any number of ways. He chose to provide through a destitute widow, a woman at the very point of starvation, with only a handful of meal and a little oil left. By every human reckoning, she was the least likely source of provision, herself in desperate need, with nothing to spare. And yet through her God would sustain his prophet, and, as the story unfolds, sustain her too. God provided through the most unlikely and unpromising of means. This reveals that God's provision often comes through unexpected and unpromising channels. We tend to look for provision from obvious sources, from those who have abundance, from means that appear adequate to the need. And when the available means seem impossible, a destitute widow with almost nothing, we conclude that provision cannot come. But God provides through unlikely means; he can sustain through those who seem to have nothing, work through the weak and the poor and the improbable, so that the provision is clearly his doing and not the obvious result of adequate means. God chose the weak things of the world, Paul says, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. He works through the unlikely to make his hand evident. This gives us confidence in God's provision even when the means seem impossible. We do not need to see an adequate source before we can trust God to provide; he provided for Elijah through a starving widow, through means that seemed to have nothing. When the visible means are inadequate or improbable, God is not thereby limited; he can provide through the unlikely, the weak, the poor, the unpromising. We have this treasure in clay jars, Paul says, that the surpassing power may be seen to be God's. This calls us to trust God's provision even when we cannot see how it will come. God sustained his prophet through a destitute widow, an unlikely and unpromising means; and he provides for us still through channels we would never expect, so that we may trust his provision even when the available means seem impossible, knowing that God is not limited to the obvious but works his provision through the unlikely to make his hand clear.

When I look for provision, do I trust only obvious and adequate sources, concluding that provision cannot come when the available means seem impossible or improbable, and can God's choice to sustain Elijah through a destitute widow with only a handful of meal teach me that God's provision often comes through unlikely and unpromising means, so that I trust his provision even when I cannot see how it will come, knowing he works through the weak and the improbable to make his hand clear?