You Are Enough

2 Kings 4:1-7

“Tell me what you still have left in your house?” Elisha asks a poor widow. Her husband has died. She has sold everything, but still his debts remain. One of his creditors assumes that all she has of any value is her children and he vows to take them. But Elisha thinks she has something left, something he might be able to use.

“There is nothing,” she answers, heartbroken. As if to drive home the state of her poverty, she adds, “Except one small jar of oil.”

The prophet sends her away with a preposterous plan, but she does what Elisha has told her. It may seem crazy, but it’s not as crazy as just sitting back and letting her children be taken away from her.

She thought she had nothing but scraps left, but she found out that she had more than enough left.

It doesn’t matter how broken, how empty, how lonely we may feel, we have enough.

It doesn’t matter what others may say about you–they may see you as worthless and useless, they may reject you… but when God sees you, God sees that you are enough.

There are two directions we can go with this story… if we are broken and hurting, we can find hope and the promise of salvation in the story of the widow who used what little she had and followed God faithfully, only to find that what little she had was more than enough.

Or, if we are privileged with being in a place of security, we should be acting as Elishas. We should be the ones who see the broken and hurting and recognize that they are enough. We should be finding creative ways to let them know this.

Whatever direction we go, the last thing we want to be is the creditor who thought only of himself. He had the civil and religious legal rights to take her children away, but just because the churches and the courts said it was okay didn’t mean God would view it as just. We don’t want to be the one adding to another person’s hurt and brokenness just because we can.

Who do you relate to in this story? Are you the widow, looking for rescue from a dire situation? Are you Elisha, pointing others to hope in God and reminding them that they are enough? Are you the creditor, rigidly following the rules even if it causes harm to another?