Our Lady of the Empty Jars

Wow, Shannon Fernando’s message yesterday really landed. If you haven’t heard it, you might want to look it up on City Church’s YouTube channel.

In particular, the whole idea that God invites us to interact with our emptiness and to share it with others was so powerful. What are the empty areas of your life? What might it mean that God doesn’t invite us to name our emptiness out of SHAME but for the sake of HEALING?

Read through this passage and see what the Spirit brings to mind.

2 Kings 4: 1-7 (NIV)

4 The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

2 Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”

3 Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”

5 She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

7 She went and told the man of God, and he said,“Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”