Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 494). How does a seemingly abstract “divine Love” meet a seemingly concrete “human need”?
During a widespread drought, the prophet Elijah was directed by the Lord to go into the town of Zarephath, where God made it known to Elijah that he would find a certain widow who would sustain him (see I Kings 17). Obediently, he found this woman, but she had so little that she was incapable of sustaining herself, much less anyone else. With only a handful of meal and a little oil left, she planned to cook a final meal for herself and her son and then die.
Elijah told her, “Fear not,” and he directed her to use the meal to make a little cake for him first, and then for herself and her son. He promised her that neither the cruse of oil nor the meal would fail until rains came to end the drought. The woman obeyed Elijah’s directive, and afterward, the oil and the meal continued to feed her, her son, and Elijah as he’d promised.