“Elisha said, Go around and ask your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for a few.”
~ 2 Kings 4:3
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever witnessed a miracle? A miracle is a phenomenon which cannot be rationally understood or explained. Only God can be the author of miracles. Do you think that miracles are still happening on planet Earth? Inexplicable incidences that belie coincidence have happened to your grandmaa and grandpaa that affected the life track that they were on. After your grandpaa worked for a year in the Beneficial Finance office that is located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Beneficial Finance asked your grandpaa in 1972 to transfer to Aberdeen, South Dakota to manage their loan office that was there. The next two years that your grandmaa and grandpaa lived in Aberdeen were filled with occurrences that could only have been God ordained and controlled. If a bank manager – as he was eating an ice cream cone, had not walked by the table in a mall where your grandpaa was drinking coffee with the realtor who was helping your grandmaa and grandpaa find a place to buy in Aberdeen, your grandpaa and grandmaa may not have ended up with the house that they bought and liked a lot. If your grandpaa’s bro Craig had not chosen Northern State College – which is in Aberdeen, to go to on the G.I. Bill after his stint in the Navy, your grandmaa and grandpaa may never have checked out the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church that is in Aberdeen. Craig and his wife Coleen had been living in Aberdeen for several years before your grandpaa was asked to transfer there. When Craig and Coleen told your grandmaa and grandpaa that the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church was a church they might like to attend as they had heard that it was a good church, your grandpaa visited the church one Sunday morning. Your Aunt Lynn was only weeks old at the time. At the insistence of the guy or gal who stopped your grandpaa as he was leaving the church, your grandpaa signed the church’s guest book. A couple of days later, two of the Aberdeen Christian & Missionary Alliance Church’s members – Harriet Van Baak and Deborah Armor, visited your grandmaa which . . . less than two years later, your grandmaa and grandpaa had begun their missionary venture. Back to your dad’s Uncle Craig and Aunt Coleen – they met when your dad’s Uncle Craig took a bus from where he was based in Norfolk, Virginia to Delaware to spend a couple of days with your grandmaa and grandpaa as they were still living in Delaware. When your dad’s Aunt Coleen saw Craig dressed in his Navy whites the first time that Craig went to church with your grandmaa and grandpaa . . . Coleen for a short time lived next door to your grandmaa when your grandmaa lived with her ma in Brandywine, Delaware. Coleen’s dad and ma went to the same church that your grandmaa’s dad and ma were members. Your grandmaa and grandpaa know that it could only have been something that God could do that would have Craig and Coleen end up in Aberdeen when they did – as your grandmaa and grandpaa know that there was no way at all that they could have orchestrated or choreographed all the logistics in the way that everything came together for them to go to and during their time in Aberdeen.
The Kings Books historian did not just write about the kings who ruled over God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land that God gave to them to always to have to live in as their very own land if . . . the Kings Books historian also wrote about a couple of prophets – one prophet being Elisha. The Kings Books historian in 2 Kings 4 seems to be copying Elisha’s diary as he recorded a series of four miraculous events in which Elisha was involved. The first event was about the very poor widow of a prophet companion of Elisha who had died. The widow had two kids. Her husband owed a creditor a lot of money. If the widow did not come up with the money to pay the creditor what her husband owed, the creditor would be able to take her two kids to sell them as slaves to get the money back that was owed him. Elisha told the widow to find as many clay jars as she could – to even borrow jars from her neighbors. Elisha told the widow to begin pouring the little oil that she still had left in her clay jar into the clay jars that she had found. The little oil that the widow had left in her jar never stopped pouring out of the jar until all the other clay jars were completely full. The next miraculous event involved a gal who did not have any kids and whose husband was old. Elisha one day told this well-to-do gal – who lived in Shumen, that a year from that day she would have a kid. It happened just as Elisha said that it would happen; the Shunemmite gal had a kid a year later but . . . the kid died several years later. After Elisha twice stretched himself over the kid, the kid sneezed seven times and came back to life. The next miraculous event happened when one of the Elisha’s servants found a vine with some gourds on it that no one had seen before. The prophet’s servants used the gourds in the stew that they were preparing. When the prophets realized that the gourds were poisonous. Elisha told the prophets to get him some flour which he dumped into the pot of stew that had the cut up gourds in it. The flour that Elisha dumped into the pot of stew made the pot of stew edible. The last miraculous event involved a guy from Baal Shalishah. After the guy gave Elisha twenty barley loaves of baked bread along with some heads of new grain, Elisha instructed one of the servants to give the twenty barley loaves of bread plus the heads of new grain to the hundred prophets who with him for them to eat. The servant was sure that there would not be enough bread for all the prophets but . . . there was bread left over after the hundred prophets had finished eating. Elisha is your grandpaa’s favorite Bible character.
If you want God to miraculously help you, listen to what verse 3 says, “Elisha said, “‘Go around and ask your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for a few.” There is no way that you can overestimate God’s ability to help you.
2 Kings 4 (414)