GOD’S CARE IN SUFFERING

Stories of adversity and hardship fill today’s headlines. Human suffering is, sadly, an inevitable dynamic of the human experience. Accounts of anguish and ruin are also easily found in the pages of Scripture. One such case is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of 1 Kings where we read of God’s prophet, Elijah, and an impoverished widow facing certain death. To set the context, Elijah finds himself in a time of great crisis resulting from the drought he predicted in the chapter’s opening verse. Following his prophecy, the Lord commanded Elijah to depart and hide from King Ahab and his wicked wife, Jezebel, because of their hostility toward God and his prophet. Elijah was ordered to find refuge in the Cherith Ravine, which was located in an isolated area where he would be protected from King Ahab and Jezebel. The brook would provide life sustaining water and the ravens, which God promised to send, would provide nourishment.

Thanks to God’s provisions, all was well with Elijah until the river dried up. No water meant certain death; therefore, the Lord provided Elijah with further instructions. God was not finished with Elijah; he still had a plan for his prophet which would take him far beyond the banks of a dried brook and would eventually lead him into direct conflict with God’s opponents.

In 1 Kings 17:9, God commanded Elijah to “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” Immediately, Elijah obeyed God’s word and made the trek to Zarephath, which was located approximately eight miles south of Sidon. This was the very region where Jezebel’s father Ethbaal ruled. Sidon was a Phoenician commercial city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it was known for its idolatry. Zarephath was the very heart of Baal worship. Elijah is on his way to the front lines of God’s fight against idolatry. God was sending his faithful prophet directly into Baal’s home territory, making it an unlikely place for a prophet of the Lord to be protected! Despite the obvious risks and challenges, however, God promised to meet Elijah’s needs in Zarephath.

By God’s divine orchestration, Elijah receives care from an unlikely source. Elijah was not leaving Cherith, a place that required day to day dependence on God, to enjoy a comfortable place flowing with milk and honey where he could relax for a while and recharge his batteries. God’s plan for Elijah goes from requiring him to live beside an isolated brook and eating meals delivered by ravens rather than DoorDash, to now being placed under the care of a destitute widow who lacked the resources to care for herself and son. She was the one whom God commanded to feed Elijah.

In God’s providence, Elijah spots the appointed widow as he arrives at the city gate (1 Kings 17:10). During Elijah’s time, widows were marginalized in society and typically the first to be affected by drought and famine. Most widows depended on charity from others just to survive, making them a dubious source of charity. As the following verses explain, this widow was living in utter despair. She lacked the food necessary to feed herself and her son, how in the world was she supposed to care for Elijah?

Upon seeing the widow, Elijah asked her for a drink of water and a morsel of bread (vv. 10-11). In response to the prophet’s ridiculous question, the widow reveals the desperate nature of her bleak situation. All she had to her name was some flour, a dab of oil, and a few sticks of wood. The widow’s doomsday plan was to make a final meal for her and her son to enjoy before surrendering to death’s calling. Like a criminal on death row anticipating his last meal, this poor widow fully expected to starve to death along with her son within hours or days (v. 12). Talk about a desperate situation.

In response to the widow’s grim strategy, Elijah encourages her to not give in to fear. Let’s be honest, she had plenty of reasons to be crippled by fear. In the midst of a severe drought, she was running out food, making death an imminent reality. The widow’s fear was palpable. Like the odor, color, and darkness overtaking the horizon, announcing a coming storm, the pangs of her stomach and the cries of her son foretold of their forthcoming demise. Hungry and weary, she had reason to fear and reason to believe her situation was hopeless. As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” This widow’s cowardice was not based on unsubstantiated assumptions; it was well-informed fear rooted in actualities.

Nonetheless, Elijah encouraged this disheartened widow to have courage and to make for him a cake before making something for herself and her son. While this certainly sounds like a rude and inconsiderate request, it was one that would bring hope to this woman. Rather than leaving the widow to wonder why he would make such a heartless request, Elijah explained his reasoning by sharing God’s word with her. He told the widow, “For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth’” (1 Kings 17:13-14). Elijah promised the Lord would not allow her flour and oil to be exhausted, and that God would sustain her until the drought was over.

By faith, the widow followed Elijah’s audacious commandment and God did exactly as he promised. First Kings 17:15-16 tells us that “she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, nor did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.” Through the widow’s obedience to God’s word, she and her son are spared along with God’s prophet. The widow experienced God’s miraculous provision through her faithfulness, and powerfully served God’s redemptive purposes.

This brief account reminds us that God leads his people one step at a time and that he works in deeply mysterious ways. None of us would choose a penniless widow to feed us if our lives were on the line. Unfortunately, our human reasoning and calculating often gets in the way of our obedience. Through the power of God, adversity and hardship can be managed, difficulties can be sorted out, and problems can be solved. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Hardships often prepare people for an extraordinary destiny.” That was true of the widow in this account, and it was undoubtedly true for Elijah. Every Christian knows Elijah’s name. But no one knows the widow’s name. Without her obedience and assistance, however, Elijah would not have been able to stand against the prophets of Baal and bring glory to God’s holy name.

The widow serves as a great example of how we should live by faith in times of difficulty. When facing the torturous pain of adversity and hardship, we are often prone to making three substantial mistakes which can produce even more heartache. Let’s briefly examine them by using the widow as our case study.

First, we must avoid the mistake of dismissing the pain and pretending nothing of consequence happened. As we will see in a moment, painful events should not define us, but we cannot ignore them either. The widow was well aware of her circumstances. Although doing all she could to survive, she never dismissed her suffering or pretended as if everything was okay.

Second, we must avoid the mistake of admitting that something painful happened but insisting it had no impact on us. Created in God’s image, we are not heartless robots who lack emotions. The widow not only admitted that she was in dire straits, she also rightfully expressed her pain with heartbroken emotion for herself and for her son.

Third, we must avoid clinging to the pain to the point it becomes our identity. Making pain the centerpiece of our existence and defining our lives by the adversity we have suffered produces a life filled with bitterness and resentment. We cannot say for sure that this widow did not have some level of bitterness in her soul, but what we can say is that she put aside whatever resentment was lingering in her heart to serve God as he commanded.

When passing through the grim valley of adversity, we must rest in the care, strength, and protection of the Good Shepherd. As David wrote in Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” In Psalm 34:19, David adds, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Resisting the temptation to fall into one of these three traps in times of adversity will allow us to come out of the valley of pain even stronger than when we entered. After all, “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small” (Proverbs 24:10). May the Good Shepherd’s care carry us through the longest and darkest valleys so our strength is increased. Allowing the Lord to strengthen us through times of adversity and trial will prepare us for an extraordinary destiny that will bring all glory and honor to His great name.