GO BORROW VESSELS

• DAY 237
• FAITH FILE: THE PROPHET’S WIDOW
• SCRIPTURES: 2 KINGS 4

So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few.

2 KINGS 4:2-3

If you’re Nigerian, borrowing doesn’t have a good feeling for you when you hear the word “borrow” you think of embarrassment, losing, your home, and, most recently, your contact getting calls from a loan app. The everyday Nigerian doesn’t think borrowing is advisable or wise. Mostly businesses and big organizations bite from this forbidden apple. Believers also frown at borrowing. We say we lend to many nations and borrow from no man. One time I heard a preacher advise his congregation not to subscribe to the credit system of America but to live without borrowing. I did not think that would be feasible but that’s my opinion.

However, there are some things that you cannot achieve if you don’t borrow. Because what do you do if you do not have the resources to carry out that assignment on your own? How do you start that business without a bank loan or friend loan? We have to be open to the possibility that there are some miracles that God will perform in our lives that are going to require lending from others. it may require that you ask for things that you do not have. An example is in our text today.

Widowed and Indebted

This woman lost her husband and she didn’t have any source of livelihood. In her time, women didn’t really work. Men were providers and women were homemakers. Different from today when women also contribute to the finances in the home and serve as co-providers with their husbands. So should the breadwinner pass it wouldn’t be as devastating but in her day it could mean poverty. God had to ensure that Israel was sensitive enough to cater to the widows in their community and the early church did the same too.

With debtors at her door, she sought the help of Prophet Elisha. He realized that all she had was oil. God has no problem working with what you have but the issue was that she needed more capacity for the multiplication that was about to occur. For that miracle to happen, she had to borrow. However, this woman was not borrowing to lavish on herself she was borrowing to start a business of selling oil so that she could pay off her husband’s debt.

Borrow

This woman was not the first person God asked to borrow. When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, God told them to go and borrow from their neighbors the Egyptians. It was the things they borrowed that they used to cross the Red Sea and were able to come out on the other side and they just from the things they borrowed that they used as resources to build the temple. For borrowing to work on both instances God granted them favour.

God can open up opportunities for you to borrow but what are you borrowing for? First, it’s going to take faith to believe that God can bring you a miracle through a resource that is not yours but loaned to you for a period of time it’s also going to take courage for you to swallow your pride and put yourself in the position to borrow and risk people calling you a beggar. There is however wisdom required when deciding to borrow. What most people do is borrow for frivolities or luxuries. Instead of for purposes like business, financing your home, student loan, and other things that bring returns. Instead of clothes, shoes, etc.

Beloved, expand the way that you think God is going to bring you a miracle because for you it might be to borrow and that is going to take courage. Take a moment and ask God to direct you on the strategy for your miracle. Present what you have and believe Him for a miracle of multiplication. Pray in Jesus name.

Shalom.