Christian Giving For Financial Stress Management

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The Financially Stressed Widow Of 1 Kings

In 1 Kings chapter 17:8-16, God tells Elijah to go to a widow in Zarephath since there was a famine in the land. On arrival, he finds her collecting sticks to prepare what she calls the last meal before she and her son die of starvation. Elijah asks her for some water to drink and bread to eat but she replies that she has only had a handful of flour in her bin and a little oil in a jar. Elijah then tells her to first prepare for him a small cake from that little flour and oil before she feeds her son or herself.

The widow was obedient and gave Elijah his request and as a result, her bin of flour and jar of oil fed her family for many days until rain doused the famine.

Therefore, we can learn that when our resources, financial or otherwise, are insufficient to cover our needs, we need to share them with a man or woman of God so that God can bless them until they cover all our needs.

We can also see that we need to give to the lives of a man or woman of God first. We need to give them from the best and not from the dregs at the bottom of our jars of oil. This means we should give them from the “abundance of our lack”, rather than give them the few coins that remain after we have attempted to stretch our financial resources to do what we knew they could not do in the first place.