VISITATION FOR RESTORATION (V)

For thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth’  – 1 Kings 17:14 (NKJV)

There seems to be a special place in the Heart of God for widows. He cares so much about widows that they are mentioned over one hundred times in Scripture. He is a “defender of widows” (Psa.68:5); He “watches over...and relieves the…widow” (Psa.146:9). James 1:27 says, "Pure and undefiled religion before God…is to visit orphans and widows in their trouble…” Our compassionate God surely feels the brokenness, loneliness, depression, and solitude of widows. Perhaps that is why over and over in the Bible we see among widows, such cases of Prophetic Visitation for Restoration.

A classic example is in 1 Kings 17. Here, we see how God, in the middle of a devastating famine, sent the prophet Elijah to Zarephath, saying he would meet a widow there who would sustain him. Ironically, this widow was facing her worst nightmare: she had just enough for one more meal, then she and her son would die. Death was scornfully staring at her. Then, Elijah, the God-sent visitor came along. He made her a ridiculous offer to serve him first out of her meagre meal, and she responded positively.

The widow’s reward: Death was disappointed and put to shame. God, through His servant, multiplied the little jar of oil and handful of flour to sustain the destitute widow’s family. This became the best day of her life. God’s Visitation left her much better than she ever was – restored from famine and poverty; and delivered from death!

However woeful or miserable your situation may be, you can be the next Testifier to God’s Visitation for Restoration. God did not send Elijah to the nobles, the rich or the wealthy. Rather, He sent his messenger to a widow in need; and in meeting the need of God’s servant; she encountered her own deliverance and restoration. Her secret was in her faith, evidenced in her sacrificial giving. She could have chosen to eat and die; but discerning her day of visitation, she gave and lived!