1Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” 2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. 4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” 5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
God still works the same way. Here was someone needing God to do a work in her life, but the conditions needed to be right. God took what she had, her oil, and then used her preparation of gathering the other vessels and filled them up. Far too often we think to small. If we are going to do ministry, we need to think bigger. We always must have another classroom open, another parking spot empty, a few more chairs available for guests to sit in. I’ve seen it over and over in 20 years of ministry, there’s a great surge of activity and people are coming. Every seat is full, all the parking spots are taken “isn’t this great!!!” Well, inevitably a few months later the situation is very different. “Bring me another vessel” and the oil stopped flowing. We must be prepared for what we believe God is going to do, and we must believe God is going to move big. Why wouldn’t we want God to reach people through us? Isn’t that why we’re here?
