And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.
1 Kings 17:13-15
The widow of Zarephath lived in Sidon, the homeland of Jezebel and a center of Baal worship. She did not come from the covenant nation of Israel or grow up surrounded by the worship of the true God. Yet when Elijah met her, she spoke of “the LORD thy God” as the living God. And when Elijah gave her a promise from “the LORD God of Israel,” she acted on it.
Her obedience was remarkable. She had only enough food left to prepare one final meal for herself and her son, yet she made Elijah’s meal first because she trusted the promise God had given through him. Her actions testified to her faith. She believed that the God of Israel was able to do what He had said, and she staked the last of what she had on His word.
Faith is not believing that things are going to go the way we want or expect. Faith is not believing that things are going to work out exactly the way we pray for them to happen. Faith is believing that God will faithfully fulfill every promise He has made according to His wisdom, His power, His timing, and His methods. “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11). All of us know the experience of seeing God do something completely different than we asked for or expected only to later understand how His way was so much better. None of us know the experience of seeing God fail to keep any of His promises.
