One hundred hungry men waited for dinner as twenty small loaves of bread appeared—nothing else. The baker knew the bread wouldn’t fill all those bellies, but Elisha served it anyway. Later, the men pushed back from the table smiling and satisfied.

A widow faced a terrible situation. To satisfy her late husband’s massive debts, the collectors threatened to seize her two sons as slaves. Elisha instructed her to gather all the jars she could possibly find from friends and neighbors, then fill them from the one small jar of olive oil she possessed. After spending a day filling jar after jar after jar, until every one sat brimming with oil, she sold it all and paid off her debts, with enough left over to live on.

A Shunammite woman befriended the prophet, and the Lord blessed her with a son in return. Tragically, a few years later the son died in her arms. Elisha ran to her home and restored the child’s life. The Lord gave life, and then the Lord restored life, both times against the cravings of biology.

These three incidents from the life of Elisha demonstrate the abundant character of our Lord. Abundant with food, abundant with finances, abundant with life.

I often lean toward a mindset of scarcity, worrying about having enough bread or olive oil. I decide to slice the pie thinner—but the Lord just makes more pies. The Lord’s economy supersedes mine. While I possess a scarcity mentality, the Lord points out his abundance.

As a result, I can act generously toward others, sharing what I hold, knowing that the Lord’s wonderful abundance overwhelms my closed-minded scarcity.

Resources in the hand of the Lord multiply.

2 Kings 4 in week twenty-nine of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Roberta Sorge