When Nothing Is Left God Is Still There

The last few weeks we have had some beautiful
sunny days with temperature in the 70's. I was
thinking, probably we will not need to use our
wood stove any longer this spring. This
morning was a bit cooler so my son faithfully
started a fire in the wood stove.
About noon I glanced out the kitchen window and
noticed a small pile of little branches lying in a
scattered pile. I realized that these were the
same kind of branches which were used in the
woodstove. The thought came to me, "Are
these all we have left for the stove?" Then I
pictured in my mind a story in the Bible.

In this story God sent the prophet Elijah during
the time of famine to a widow woman to provide
food for him.He found the woman gathering a
few sticks so that she could go and could bake
some bread for herself and her son. She had
only a little oil and a handful of flour. When
this was gone she told the prophet that she
and her son would eat and die. At Elijah's
word, the woman prepared him food first and
according to the Word that God had given
Elijah, the bin of flour and the jar of oil did
not run out until the time of rain.

I am reminded of another story when Jesus
was in the temple and he saw a widow woman
put her last mite into the offering. This consisted
of her entire living. Do we not serve the same
God of Elijah? In these days of economic
uncertainty do we have faith to give first to
the Lord and believe that He will provide for
us even as He did for the widow?