Elisha and the Widow's Oil Bible story for kids

Empty jars. That is what a mother and her two boys needed that day — more than bread, more than money, more than anything.

Not full ones. Empty ones. The biggest ones the neighbors could spare.

The mother had a problem. Her husband had died. He had been one of the men who followed the prophet Elisha — do you remember that group? They learned from him, and prayed, and shared one roof. He had loved God.

The family owed money. And the man they owed it to was coming to take her two boys to work for him until the debt was paid.

So she went and found Elisha, and told him.

Elisha didn't give a speech. He asked her a question. "What do you have in your house?"

She thought about it. There was nothing in that house. Nothing at all... except one small jar of olive oil. Not the widow with the flour, little one — different woman, different town.

Most people would have looked at that little jar and said, well, that won't go far. Elisha said: go and borrow jars. From all your neighbors. And don't ask for just a few.

Then go inside. Shut the door behind you and your sons. And pour. Fill one, and set it aside. Fill the next.

Notice what Elisha didn't do. He didn't come to the house. He didn't pray out loud. He didn't touch the little jar or wave his hand over it. He asked one question, and he gave her something to do.

So the two boys went out. Door after door, all the way down the street. Not bread. Not money. Empty jars. And every time somebody handed one over, the boys said thank you, and went and knocked on the next door. By the time they were finished their arms ached, and their house was crowded with borrowed pots, and not one of them had a single drop in it.

And then she shut the door. Just a mother and two boys and a heap of borrowed pots.

She tipped the little jar. Oil came out. She filled one, and set it aside. Her sons carried her another, and she filled that one. And another. And another.

Oil. Still oil. Out of a jar that should have been empty three jars ago.

Fill, set aside. Fill, set aside. Until —

"Bring me another one," she said.

And her son said, "There is not a jar left."

And the oil stopped.

Did you hear when it stopped, little one? Not when God ran out. When the jars ran out. The pouring outlasted every single jar in that house.

She went back and told Elisha, and he said: go, sell the oil, pay what you owe, and you and your sons can live on the rest.

Not long ago we heard about a man who dropped a borrowed axe head in a river, and how God cared about one small debt he couldn't repay. Here is that same God again, with a whole family who couldn't repay. He didn't send money. He asked what was already in the house — and then gave them more of it than the house could hold. Behind a shut door, where nobody outside ever saw it happen.

And God was with him. God was with her. God is with you, too.

Soft and slow, little one. May the same God who filled every borrowed jar behind a shut door, where nobody was watching... be doing something good for you that nobody else can see.