(Volume 1, Issue 1)
The earth’s wealthiest resources are universally accessible yet ubiquitously exclusive to all but the casual collector or curator. Its soil’s surface is but the first of many layers representing thick boundaries and barriers that obscure the secure treasures within, as with its sea surfaces, which though largely transparent, often appear translucent or opaque, correspondingly obfuscating the fine treasures buried in its depths. Earth’s priceless riches are thus extracted, excavated, or extricated from ocean depths through a series of intentional, systematic, and exacting processes. These are embarked upon by the relative few who set their sights, skills, and passions to do so as a professional or other equally persistent pursuits. Casual observers or persons with fleeting fancies will rarely enjoy the thrills of unearthing precious stones or other sources of wealth. It takes focused intentionality, determined fervor, a strong sense of purpose, and an ardent, unrelenting persistence to uncover the earth’s richest treasures.
Likewise, man’s greatest and most priceless treasures often lay incognito, dormant, untapped, and obscured in the mundanity of daily living and the depths of mindless details, activities, and minutiae of day-to-day existence.
Recent God-encounters tasked us with examining some fascinating questions God asked His people in certain climactic situations. He asked because He wanted to open their understanding to the great possibilities embedded in several dimensions of their lives and environs, not because He was clueless, ignorant, or directionless on what to do.
Join me in this adventurous quest to discover the priceless assets these ordinary folks unearthed in their attempts to answer these questions, and uncover with me the great treasures and invaluable merchandise we also have at our disposal, enabling life experiences, blessings, and performances at God’s highest and best!
This question could appear somewhat quirky, cold-hearted, or borderline querulous, given the context of the query i.e., within the setting of the quintessential quadruple quagmire.
First, the subject was a woman, an utterly helpless one at that. She was a genuine damsel in distress in the most accurate depiction of the term. Hers was not the gender of choice for easy survival and self-sustenance in her day and geographical arena.
Second, she was a widow. Never a good status (except in unusual circumstances), this did not portend well for her. Men were the typical breadwinners in ancient Israel, and once a man died, his wife, children, and property became the responsibility of his brother or sons (the latter if they were of age at the time of his death). Without a brother-in-law or adult sons to take on the physical burdens that would generate income and ensure the perpetuity of the family’s finances, a woman’s future became highly precarious, solely dependent on her community’s benevolence or on her good fortune to remarry a man of means. Outside of these assistive interventions, her future was a bleak one indeed.
Third, her husband had died leaving behind a mound of debt. He had scarcely been buried for a few days; indeed, his body was still likely warm in the grave when a hound of bloodthirsty creditors began to pursue and breathe threats down her neck. For one likely of the delicate sort and unfamiliar with the practical and oft times coldblooded nature of business dealings, this would have been quite disconcerting, not to mention downrightly terrorizing.
Lastly and most importantly, her two sons – the essence of her remaining existence and representations of any future she might still have – were the collateral the creditors were coming after in lieu of the money owed. Their forcible separation from her would be the devastating harbinger of her sure end, for the absence of their emotional, physical, and financial support would strip her of every potential for a future and relegate her to destitution and homelessness. She would most certainly have to take to the streets.
So, the question in question was off-key, to say the least. One would have expected a sympathetic spiel of some sort, a homily proffering choice words of commiseration and solicitude in response to her gut-wrenching plea. Instead, the prophet’s unblinking response was that seemingly cavalier one-line query.
Every time God asks man a question, it is never because He is oblivious to the answer or curious about his current state. It is usually a pointer to the fact that the subject has missed a vital piece of God’s plan or provision. He asked Adam where he was, Elijah what he was doing at a particular place, Moses what he had in his hand, etc. In each instance, His query was not a product of curiosity, ignorance, or unawareness; it was a glaring pointer to the fact that each person was missing something pivotal to their current circumstance. In Adam’s case, it was to showcase his fall from glory into sin, the natural byproduct of which was to attempt to hide from the living God with Whom he had previously and unashamedly shared sweet intimacy. In Elijah’s case, the repeated question highlighted the fact that he was off course physically and in the wrong place mentally. He was about to be replaced in his destiny assignment. In Moses’s instance, God wanted to show him He could and would use and transform the ordinary tool in his hand into an extraordinary tool in God’s hand for mighty signs and miracles; the goal being a massive national deliverance.
Against the historical backdrop of God’s quizzical quizzing behaviors, the prophet’s question loses its abrasive undertone; indeed, in typical prophet-style, it exhibits his “cut to the chase” approach to effective resolution. It was also instructive; it alerted to the fact that in the widow’s panicked state and desperate straits, she had overlooked a pivotal portal of provision that was well within her grasp. In her mind, she was already living in abject poverty, so nothing in her home could have value or potential. In God’s mind, she already had within her reach the required solution to her problems. She only needed to recognize, esteem, acknowledge, cultivate, express, and engage its seed form to practicalize its use and optimize returns.
This scenario does not occur as infrequently as one may think; it recurs regularly in God’s dealings with man. Our humanity often demands that we focus on negative circumstances. This often results in the conclusion that we are grossly lacking in some manner, shape, or form, or worse still, that our situations have written us off from any blessings or benefits that could have been ours outside of our sorry state. Andrew dejectedly declared “There is a boy here that has five barley loaves and two fishes; but what are these among so many?”1 right before the first New Testament miracle of supernatural multiplication. A son of the prophet cried, “Alas, master! For it was borrowed!”2 after a foiled tree-felling expedition. Worse, Peter resorted to resigned apathy, “… we have toiled all night and caught nothing, nevertheless at Your Word ….”3. In each instance, the ensuing miracle far overshadowed the initial protest, with each protester experiencing an overwhelming sense of awe and stupefaction at the impossibility-turned possible! The miracle occurred right within their natural milieu in all three scenarios. None of them needed to travel or produce a particular artifact for their respective miracles to happen; God used unobtrusive things they had within their reach to manifest the impossible!
For Andrew and the disciples, it was the five loaves and two fish provided by the young lad; for the son of the prophet, it was an ordinary stick close to the fallen axe head; for Peter, it was the same boat he and his colleagues had used in their unsuccessful fishing enterprise the night before; in the widow’s case, it was a diminutive cruse of oil unassumingly present in her house. In all instances, the token source of their miracle was well within their grasp yet remained largely unidentified as substances with any potential, appearing worthless and inconsequential to their needs until God’s pointed question provoked an excavating investigation.
Friend, what do YOU have in YOUR house? What gift, talent, resource, Word, promise, asset, opportunity, relationship, etc., has remained dormant, unrecognized, seemingly irrelevant, largely ignored, and grossly underutilized by your unseeing eyes and unperceiving senses? What treasure(s) do you possess in seed form that when recognized, acknowledged, utilized, and subjected to God’s Word of instruction will yield the provision that sustains you through famine, the abundance that overwhelmingly supplies your needs and those of others around you, and the solution that restores every loss you have experienced? WHAT IS IN YOUR HOUSE?
Bibliography
1John 6:8-9
22 Kings 6:5
3Luke 5:5