a very big love

If finding an extra cookie in the cookie jar brings a lift to your day then imagine how the widow must have felt when Elijah's promise of the jars being full of grain and oil came through. Imagine the excitement as she opened the jar and found exactly what she had been promised - but also imagine how she could have reacted - she could have told herself it was not true.....too much to hope for, and set the jars aside.

God promises life to us but we have to take that life on board and that is an ongoing process - like the daily making of bread for the woman. It looked like the woman's trust was betrayed when her son apparently died. I have read this story many times and today it made me wonder why it is we have this payback system in our heads with God sometimes - because she had lived from God's bounty did this mean she would have to give something up - even her son?

She did what so many folks do which is to search for meaning in tragedy and came up with that meaning to be that she deserved it somehow. Mercy was the response from God through the prophet, mercy and restoration. But the boy did not die because she deserved it, it had never been some sort of payback for eating the bread God had given. There is no balance sheet of retribution for blessings received - that would be evil - almost like giving poisoned food.

Faith is a hard journey because it asks us to undo that part of our humanity which looks for a sort of linear justice. The sort of cause and effect life which we find fairly easy to slot into - it asks us to look beyond that and to believe that God is better than we can imagine. Bigger than we can see and fair in a way which redefines that word.

It is tempting to get sidetracked into bigger issues but this is a small comment - let's let God fill the jars and open them with expectation and gratitude. We are all faced with tragedy sometimes but all the time we have a promise of a very big love.