{"id":4046,"date":"2012-05-31T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/?p=4046"},"modified":"2012-05-30T06:11:15","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T12:11:15","slug":"trusting-hospitality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/?p=4046","title":{"rendered":"Trusting Hospitality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo he arose and went to Zarephath, And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was gong to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand\u201d (1 Kings 17:10-11).<\/em><\/p>\n

The familiar story of the prophet and the widow in 1 Kings 17 provides another example of hospitality. I encourage you to read this chapter.and ask yourself, \u201ccould I have been as gracious to the man of God?\u201d There was a famine in the land. God was busy providing for His servant, Elijah.\u00a0 Scripture relates how God sent food to him via ravens and provided water for him\u2014until the brooks dried up.\u00a0 Then God sent him to the widow of Zarephath to provide for both of their needs.<\/p>\n

As this story unfolds, we see the picture of a woman and her son who were down to their last meal.\u00a0 Today\u2019s verses reveal both a prophet\u2019s request and a widow\u2019s obedience.\u00a0 However, the prophet extended his request to include \u201ca morsel of bread.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking the water might have been a small sacrifice, but the bread was surely a stretch.\u00a0 The story continues, relating the depth of the widow’s desperation. She planned one last meal for herself and her son, and\u00a0 prepared to die. If you had been in these dire straits, what would you have done? What seems such a stretch to us is nothing compared to what God can do.<\/p>\n

Elijah told the widow to go in her house and fix him \u201ca little cake.\u201d\u00a0 She could have questioned this and the prophet\u2019s sanity, but she didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Because she trusted the man of God,\u00a0 Elijah was fed,\u00a0 and she and her son also \u201cdid eat many days.\u201d Later on in the story God performed another miracle when He used Elijah to raise this same widow\u2019s son from the dead.<\/p>\n

We are often too quick to judge people we don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t want to be too trusting with people. However, we don\u2019t want to come to the point where we don\u2019t trust people at all.\u00a0 When it comes to doing a \u201chome based, home stretch,\u201d try to remember the words found in Hebrews 13:2 about entertaining angels unawares.<\/p>\n

Sue Winchester
\nMissouri<\/p>\n

PRAY TOGETHER: <\/strong>Pray for widows (or single moms) in your church or community who may be struggling financially. Is God calling you to show hospitality to one or more of these women?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo he arose and went to Zarephath, And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-devotional"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4047,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnac.org\/twg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}