1 Kings 17 | Crossroads Daily

- Hey, I'm Chuck. - I'm Debo. - I'm Alex. - I'm Chris. - And today we are talking about a very fascinating story in the Bible of a widow who was on her last meal, literally on her last. And the prophet came to her and said, your meal's gonna last, your oil's gonna last. And you will not, you will not starve in a drought in a time where there wasn't provision. So I'm guessing we have stories, maybe not that extreme, but maybe, like think about a time in your life when you weren't sure how resources were gonna come through and you were really nervous about how it was gonna happen. Like, what comes to mind when you think about that? - Yeah, actually. - Besides every Friday night in college. (laughing) - Yeah. - I guess you might have the only one. - Call of college, actually. (laughing) - Yeah. (laughing) - I think back to a time where my husband Cameron and I said yes to a really crazy thing, which was fostering three kids. And we said yes to that. And Cameron was in transition of jobs at the time.

And so we quite literally had one income and then invited three other children and mouths to feed into our home. And so it really was a crazy question of how are we financially going to do this? Like, will we have our, will we have enough oil? Like, I don't know. And we just saw God provide for us in really cool ways. I remember being at work once and someone walked up and handed me a $20 bill for actually no reason. And I do think part of it is because we were saying yes. - You're welcome to that, by the way. - Okay. (laughing) - You are a friend. - I'm certainly not honest, but I just had to say it. (laughing) - But it was awesome. It was just, we watched God provide. And it was, you know, we would always come to the end of ourselves and be like, how are we going to make this happen? And somehow it just happened. And I know, I know that it was God sipping in and providing for us in that way. - That's awesome. - Wow. - That's good. Last fall, we had a bit of a scare with my daughter who's a little over a year now. She was seven or eight months at the time.

And she was with a sitter and she fell. And we, she clearly had done something, do her head. And we rushed to the pediatrician and they were like, hey, you guys need to go to the hospital. So we rushed there. And I didn't like, you know, with brain head stuff, you never know how bad any of these things are. And so I'm like, feeling more optimistic, maybe just trying to like gaslight myself a bit, like everything's gonna be fine. And we go into like the Czechists and we go into like this operating room and instantly 12 nurses and doctors rush in. And like, probably the worst moment in my life. - Wow, yeah. - I mean, it's like the, just that immediate like, this, okay, like this is really bad. It almost felt like out of a TV show. And thankfully it was more precautionary than anything. They were just kind of making sure everything was stable. And then they did all the scans, everything. And then a couple of days later found out like skull fracture, but no bleeding internally or anything like that. So at the end of the day, she was, everything's okay, she's great now. But I remember in those days and that time where it was just like this ambiguity, like you can't see into her head from just staring at her. It's like, is there bleeding in her brain? Like is something gonna happen to my eight month old daughter?

Like that's God, you want that to happen? Like is this and like, I mean, we're, you know, had a warrior of prayer people around us at that time. And we were doing everything we could to be praying for that and fasting and it was this weird thing of like God delivered and the reality that like, there's a chance he didn't do that though. And a lot of people, that's their story. Like so many tragic things like that. And even this story, it's like, would God not have been good if that son did pass away? And so it is this interesting, like, I feel like I still wrestle with it of like, okay, I'm like, oh God, thank you so much for doing that. Like you're so good and you're the best. And it's like, would I be saying that if it didn't work out? And so this scripture, I feel like it's, it's just so interesting to me of like, what does it mean that God is actually good? And is my standard of good? - Yeah. - What I put on him often. - Man, I'm so glad you introduced that tension. - Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, and would we still view him as a provider if he didn't provide? - I feel like sometimes I think God should provide for me in this way and then he doesn't. - Yeah. - But he's still providing for me in another way. I just don't realize it until like maybe even years later.

- That's right, that's right. Yeah. You know, it makes me think about this might be a tangent. So we'll see, please. with materialism. When you think about that, we think about like, "Oh yeah, we need nice clothes, we need our best, you know, whatever," and it's like no, it means we put more faith in the material things than we do in the spiritual things. So if we are in a pinch, we're less likely to pray and we're more likely to ask a friend, "I borrow money," or whatever the thing may be. And I think there's something about that tension, Chris, that's like, "Yeah, God's provision isn't always material." And in fact, sometimes his provision is not the material thing we want. And so I don't know, what's that stirring up in you guys? I'm just thinking about like, you're right, like this story's in the Bible and it's amazing. The woman's son dies and the prophet's able to come and bring him back to life. That's incredible. And that is not the sum total of whether or not God is good, you know? Or is if he prevented massive shootings and other things, but it's easy for me to say, "Well, if God is good, these material, painful things will never happen." But God's playing three-dimensional chess when it comes to those things, right? Yeah. Yeah. What's that, what's that stirring up for you guys? I'll say this. It makes me think about, it's Job. I think Job, when he suffers, right? And Job is the one I think who says, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." And I think, like, you know, I would say that American Christians, we don't want that

smoke. We don't really want to think about the fact that God's goodness is not determined by us getting the outcome that we want. Yeah. I think I struggle with that. Yeah. Like, I recently read through Job for the first time and I was like, "I don't get this." Like, this mentality of like wanting to praise the Lord through all the hard things that he'd gone through. And I struggle with that. Like, I oftentimes, like, there's been times where I pray to God and said, "God, I've decided to follow you. I've done all these things and like, I've given my life to you. And not that I want you to be like this genie in a bottle that like gives me all the things that I want, but like, there's some prayers I haven't, you know, seen come to fruition. And I struggle with that and like, still seeing God is good. There's definitely been times in my faith that I've been like, "Okay, God, I'm like telling myself you're good, but it's really hard." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Job's story always just confuses me and wrecks me because he gets to the end of it and God never explains why it happens either. Yeah. Which like, he goes through all this horrible suffering then gets the end like, and God's not like, "Hey, by the way, I had a conversation with Satan and he said he wanted to like put harm on you. And so I allowed it. And here's what you're going to learn from it. Yeah.

God pretty much just says, "I'm God." Yeah. And I love, I was, because I was texting my buddy the other day, who just tore his ACL. And he has so many people being like, "Hey man, it's like God's going to teach you something really good through this and like, it's going to be better." And I felt prompted to share the scripture with him that like, sometimes you just like, "Oh, stuff like this just kind of happened and it sucked and that's okay." And, but I love where Job, he says at the end, "I had heard of you by the hearing of my ear, but now my eyes see you through that suffering." And my buddy texts me, he's like, "Thank you for being honest with me." Like, it was nourishing to him where he was like, "He's going through something horrible." And he felt like the best news was that sometimes it just is hard, and God is somehow still good and that's the best. Yeah. That's right. Because he's always present in the midst of it, you know? I'm with you. I can struggle on like, "God, this doesn't feel like your goodness if it didn't come out this way, but I've lived through enough and have had people around me live through enough difficulty and suffering and no man, he is always present in pain. Even if we don't feel him, he is present in pain." In a way, just chuck admitting it, "I don't think I'm aware of him when things are going great." Yeah. Yeah. Same. And so there's something in that for us. I mean, it's funny because we're talking about a story where like, she got the good ending. She said what she wanted. She got what she wanted, right?

You know? But man, maybe there's somebody listening today that has it and maybe that's the thing you need to hear is God is still present and here's the other thing I would encourage you. It doesn't mean that you stopped praying for it. Yeah. It doesn't mean you stopped asking. You know, it doesn't mean you got to give up on the thing. I mean, obviously, you know, if there's loss in someone's God, I mean, like you deal with that that's a great thing. Yeah. But like, man, you can keep, you can keep asking them too. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Yesterday, we were talking about bread. Today is a different story of bread and oil. We had to restart this a couple of times because I just couldn't get over the ice. Our mouth is watering. Our mouth is watering because I was like, imagine different bread and oil like that. The interesting thing about oil symbolically in the Bible, it always means the presence of God. So what's interesting is what the prophet was doing is obviously giving her physical oil. You can make bread for your son and you, but it was also symbolic that through drought, through difficulty, through suffering,

the oil will not run out. - Wow. - The presence of the Lord will not run out. He will always be there for you. So it's a powerful witness. - Yeah. - Yeah, so maybe there's a place in your life where you're like, I'm dry. I'm hurting, I'm grieving. And may today be a day that you remember and experience the oil of the Lord that does not run out for you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)