What We Need Most: How Spiritual Community Points Us to Him

If I’m being really honest, I was floundering. After the surgeon said I needed a partial knee replacement at age 49, shock and anger and frustration yanked me around for awhile. I didn’t feel peace.

As someone with big feelings, I often need to talk through things with my people, to help me sort through and land on truth again. During those weeks leading up to my surgery, sometimes I chose to trust God, but sometimes I looked a bit like the widow that Elijah met outside Zarapheth. 

Goodness, I appreciate this dear woman’s flair for truth and melodrama. When Elijah asks for a drink and something to eat, she replies, “…I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die,” (1 Kings 17: 8-16).

Dark, right? Hopelessness can be tempting. When life gets hard, and my flour jars and oil jugs feel empty, I tend to measure my situation by what is missing, not by what I have. 

But then I look at Elijah, who just arrived to this conversation with no food or drink or place to live. He only has a promise from the Lord that a widow would provide for him (and here she is, full of positivity and grace). A few empty jars and jugs and a destitute widow didn’t alarm him because he was fresh off being fed by ravens and drinking from a stream in the wilderness. He already knew how to measure his situation by what he has, rather than by what is missing. 

And he knew he had the One who would save them both.

I love this as a model for how to live life with our spiritual community. They both had deep needs, and they needed each other. But as she expressed herself, Elijah doesn’t try to correct her or tell her how to feel. Instead, Elijah tells the widow to not be afraid, and then he asks her to trust his God.

Elijah pointed the widow to his Lord. The widow leaned on Elijah’s trust in God until she felt her own. By trusting Him together, the widow and Elijah ate for many days. 

Isn’t that what leaning into our spiritual community should look like? In those weeks before my surgery, when the jug looked like it was empty, this is exactly what I needed. I didn’t need my people to fix anything — I needed them to point me to Him. 

My friend, in our hardest places, may we lean into one another for reminders to trust Him first. When we only have a handful of hope and a little trust, may we point one another to Him to be filled.

May we remind each other that we have the One who won’t run dry.

Scripture for meditation
“And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.”
1 Kings 17:8-16 (ESV)

Prompts for discussion & journaling

What do you focus on in the empty times? Do you focus on Who you have or what is missing?

Do you trust people or God first when your circumstances get difficult?

Have you ever needed to borrow trust in God from others when your own waned?

When have you wanted to just fix something instead of asking God to fill it?

Share your thoughts on this devotion and discussion questions or request prayer in the Dawn app, located in Resources > Community.