Shut Yourself Away and Fill Your Jar with Oil

There's a woman in the Bible that I feel like I know. When I read her story, I see her. The text doesn’t give her a name, but I’ll call her Talia, a Hebrew name that symbolizes divine nourishment in a hidden manner.

Talia was married to a good man, a prophet. I imagine that she made her home beautiful and welcoming with whatever she had, and it felt effortless to be her friend. She never had a lot, because her husband spent his whole life serving others. I don’t know how it happened, but Talia's husband died and left her with a debt she couldn’t pay. And because she couldn't pay the debt, she was faced with the awful reality of losing her two children. Under Jewish law at that time, a creditor could take someone’s children as slaves for up to seven years.

Can you imagine Talia’s sleepless nights? None of this was fair. She spent her life serving God faithfully, yet she lost her husband, and now she was going to lose her children, too. She sold everything she had but it still wasn’t enough to pay the debt. She tosses and turns at night, her desperate silent screams burning her lungs, as suffocating anxiety fills her chest. It’s not fair, how can this be?

Talia, worn out and desperate, reaches out to the smartest, wisest person she knows. She calls her former husband’s mentor, prophet Elisha, to tell him what’s happening.

Elisha doesn’t go to the creditor on Talia's behalf. He doesn't blame Talia's dead husband for her current circumstances because, what good would that do? He doesn’t recruit all of her friends to give her money to pay her debt.

Instead he asks her, “What do you have?”

Maybe that question felt frustrating to her. I know I would have felt frustrated. Talia already sold everything she had. She tells Elisha that she only had one jar of oil in her house. That’s it. That’s all. She has nothing left except a jar of oil.

Then the prophet tells her to go ask her neighbors for empty jars. “Get as many as you can,” he says, “and then close the door, shut yourself away with your children, and fill all those jars with the little flask of oil that you have.”

Again, this sounds ludicrous, but Talia does as the prophet says. At this point, there’s nothing else to do. She’s willing to look stupid to the people that know her. She’s willing to try anything to find freedom. So she asks her neighbors for jars. Then she and her children carry them home.

Behind closed doors, hidden away in this silent desolate empty season, Talia begins to pour from her tiny flask into bigger jars. And from her obedience and her faith, a miracle happens. Every jar is filled with oil. Talia sells the oil to pay off the debt and then she has enough for her and her children to live on.

What she already had, became what she needed. From being willingly emptied out, opened her to experience abundance. It’s such a great plot twist in the story.

Imagine what might have happened if Talia had gotten bitter at the creditor and blamed everyone around her for not coming to help her? Gosh, that’s a justifiable amount of hurt that she had! Can you relate? None of this was fair, yet God provided a way for her to do the right thing because she refused to just give up or get bitter.

Talia leaned into her uncomfortable situation. She walked through her pain to search for an answer and find a way through. And she experienced divine provision with oil that supplied everything she needed.

What problem are you facing today? What do you have?

Talia was responsible for the work that lead to her own miracle. It started by looking at what she had and using it. Thousands of years later, the disciples on the mountain were faced with the seemingly impossible task of feeding five thousand people and then Jesus asked them, "What do you have?" They went to work with what they could find and a miraculous increase happened... we all know how that story ends — the five thousand were fed.

I don’t know what you are facing today, but I believe abundance is right in front of you. I pray you will have new eyes to see it and a willingness to use what is in your hands and turn it into what you need.