1 Kings 17:8-16
"8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.”11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, 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.” 13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” 15 And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 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."
Our God can be prodigal in miracles when the need arises. Here was a different kind of provision from that at Cherith, and its New Testament counterpart is the story of the feeding of the five thousand, when little was turned into much by the word of His power. The story is rich in obvious lessons for the spiritual life, but we ought to pay particular heed to the reference our Lord Himself made to it (Luke 4:25, 26). What He brought out of this lovely episode in the prophet's life was the sovereignty of God's grace reaching out beyond the confines of the chosen people to a widow woman of an unprivileged race. There were many widows in Israel to whom he might have been sent, but grace chose the outsider and conferred the blessings upon one who was outwith the covenant. How well Christ rebukes the narrow bigotry in our hearts that resents the intrusion of any beyond our own little circle whom God wills to bless. This is a great sin which carries its own punishment with it, for when we seek to exclude others from our privileges, we end by excluding ourselves, to our loss, from the blessing of God.