In the estimation of the majority, supply seldom involves considerations other than of money and material possessions. To be well supplied, they think, is to own property, securities, a bank account; to be endowed with income, dividends, interest. But how insecure are these accumulations when financial panic, business depression, crop failure, political intrigue, revolution, or war sweeps away the insecure foundations of material riches! And what is left when these are suddenly transformed into frozen assets and worthless paper?
How like the woeful reply of the widow of Zarephath to Elijah, when he asked her for food, is the answer of him who believes he has lost his earthly all! Discouraged, hopeless, desperate, the widow said, "I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die." But Elijah, the "man of God," bade her first share with him what she had; and trusting God without reservation, he told her that the meal should not waste, nor the oil fail till the need was fully met. And through her willing obedience the widow found sufficient supply.
The seventeenth chapter of I Kings is fraught with deep spiritual meaning. It is clear that Elijah had faith in God as the never-failing source of supply. His experiences show that when the individual has learned to turn away from matter, looking to God, good, for his every need—even in the face of overwhelming evidence of lack of supply —then does he begin to express the real, tangible, substantial attributes denoting the spiritual wealth or substance, which never can be lost or depreciated, and which can never lapse into worthlessness.
