Helping Others When You Have Nothing Left (January 15, 2006)

Are you running on empty?

I suppose there comes a time in most people's lives when, in one way or another, they're running on empty - or at least on fumes. Maybe it is money they have run out of. They can't pay their bills. Maybe they have run out of patience for solving a domestic problem. Maybe their idealism has evaporated and left them cynical about doing any good in the world. Maybe their wells of creativity have gone dry (pastors know this!), and they fear they can't open their mouths without boring the bejeebers out of people.

I have a word for those who have nearly run out of money, energy, ideas, hope, or even goodwill: God may still require your fumes. He required the fumes of a desperate woman in 1 Kings 17. The prophet Elijah needed food, but God, rather than sending him to a wealthy patron with stockpiled provisions, sent him to a widow who had almost nothing. When Elijah asked her for bread, she explained that she had only a tiny bit of flour and oil with which she was going to make a meal for herself and her son before they starved. Elijah said, "Make some bread for me first."

That seems so wrong. Wouldn't it have been better to say, "Terribly sorry. I'll go beg elsewhere - enjoy your last meal"? But Elijah was just being obedient. In verse 9 God had told him that he had commanded this woman to feed him. It pleased God to supply Elijah's need from the near-empty cupboard of a miserable widow who was waiting to die. Then, of course, it pleased God to replenish her stock with just
enough food to feed Elijah, her boy and herself till relief came.

Sometimes our cup is filled to overflowing; sometimes there is just a bare runnel of fluid that will hardly collect to a single drop. But that drop is precious in the eyes of God when shaken out onto the tongue of a thirsting soul. Maybe it is the word of encouragement you give to a grieving spirit just before you retreat to your own room to cry your eyes out. Maybe it is the support check you write to a missionary that drops your own balance to zero. Maybe it is the favor you do for somebody that eats up the last minute of your available time.

What a humbling experience it has been for me to discover that some need of mine was supplied by an exhausted individual giving the last he or she had. And what a boon to faith it has been when my own hopeless fumes gave hopeful encouragement to some needy Elijah. Some varieties of God's grace seem only to abound when our resources most severely abate.

God still has good use for your near-empty tank.