Borrow Not a Few

2 Kings 4:2-6, “And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.”

This chapter is the story of a widow. She was so poor to the point that those she owed were about to take her sons away from her because she could not repay her debts. All that she had was a pot of oil. She came to the prophet, Elisha, and asked what she should do.

He told her to go to all of her neighbors and borrow vessels from them. He told her to “borrow not a few.” Once she did this, he told her to take her pot of oil and pour it into the empty vessels. When she did this, she filled all of the vessels that she borrowed from just the one pot she had. She asked her son to bring another vessel, and he said that there were no more because they had filled every last one. Elisha told her to take the oil she had now and sell it to repay her debts.

God really worked in the widow’s life that day, and I believe it was due to the fact she had faith. Had she only borrowed a couple of vessels, God probably would have filled those too, but the miracle would not have been as great as it could have been.

I believe this story has a great application for us today. Just like the widow, God wants to work in our lives. However, He will only work according to the amount of vessels we have laid out. If we only place one vessel out, God only has one to fill. If we only go to church on Sunday morning, God doesn’t have much room in our lives to work. There are some that go to church Sunday School, Sunday Morning, Sunday Evening, and the Midweek service. Those are a few more vessels, but there’s so many more we can lay out. Are we going soul winning? Are we serving in ministries? Do we help on big days? Do we pray? The more vessels we have laid out for the Lord to fill, the more opportunities we are giving God to work.

I’m sure the widow didn’t completely understand why she was doing what she was doing. Maybe there was a point where she thought, “Is this even worth it?” Well, she definitely found out in the end that it was. Let’s take this lesson from the widow and lay out as many vessels as we can and allow God to work in our lives.