I met a lonely widow woman the other day. She had a visitor staying with her, a paying guest, to support her and her son in their time of financial stress.
The paying guest was generous and they felt safe while he was with them. They felt he somehow protected them giving them confidence and a sense that all was well.
But something did go wrong. The widow’s son became ill and died and she immediately turned on the guest in anger and said, ‘What made you interfere?’
Then she cried out, ‘You came here to bring my sins to light and cause my son’s death!’
How could bringing her sins to light cause her son’s death?
And, reading between the lines, I got the feeling the guest saw an opportunity nobody expected.
All he said was, ‘Give me your son.’
And she did!
Please allow me to introduce you to the widow of Zarepath and her paying guest, Elijah.
I would like you to understand what I discovered when I met this story for real.
Like the Holy Spirit, Elijah ‘brought her sins to light.’ That is exactly what the Holy Spirit does, not by making us tell the story of our wrongdoings, but by his very presence he makes us aware that we are sinful, John 16:7-11.
The widow stood accused in her own mind and when her son died, she felt it was her fault. She was overcome with guilt and this is again the work of the Holy Spirit. We become aware that if we to not believe in the Saviour, we infect those around us and ultimately we cause their eternal destruction. The Holy Spirit, like Elijah, does not want this to happen.
This old Scripture story in 1st Kings 17, and it is one that has ‘the power to make you wise and lead you to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,’ according to Timothy.
To change eternal outcomes, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to the Saviour,
So it leaves us with a question: when the Holy Spirit says, ‘Give me your son’ will we?
Elizabeth Price