Daily Manna · Day 113 · April 23
Borrow Not a Few
“Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.”
You have learned to ask God for what you think you can manage: a little more patience, a slightly better week, help getting through Thursday.
Read the story this verse sits in, because the instruction is stranger than it looks. The widow of one of the prophets is about to lose her two sons, because the man she owes money to is coming to take them as servants to pay the debt. Elisha asks her, "what hast thou in the house?" She tells him she has nothing "save a pot of oil." Then he says, "Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few."
Three things in that sentence are worth slowing down for. "Abroad" means she has to go out around the village and be seen doing it, where everyone knows her trouble. "Empty" means there is nothing to do with the jars yet but carry them home and look foolish. And "borrow not a few" is the only amount Elisha gives her. He does not tell her how much oil there will be. He leaves the limit on her side.
Verse 6 is the heart of the story: "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." The supply never ran out. What ran out was the room she had made for it. The size of the miracle had been settled by the number of jars she gathered before a drop was poured.
Notice what the story does not claim. It does not promise that whatever you ask for will come, and Elisha's words are not a technique for getting things. The oil was given to meet a real need. In verse 7 Elisha tells her, "Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest."
So ask yourself how many jars you brought to God this morning, and whether you had already decided how small His answer would be before you asked. The God who filled every jar that widow brought is still generous, so bring Him more than you think He can fill.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 113 is He Shall Receive Me (Psalm 49:15).