When God Wants the Little I Have Left

I've been studying 1 Kings 17 recently and asking myself, why would God send Elijah to a widow during a famine?  Common sense and decency demands that if I am in need, I should seek out a person of means to ask for help, not someone who is barely surviving.  

Note that in times of disaster, whether acts of God or man-made evil, it is always the poor and the vulnerable who suffer the most.  During the recent tornado you may have noticed that it is those who have less who live in the most vulnerable structures and who more often have transportation challenges.  In other words, they have less ability to flee evil and so they take refuge in inferior shelters (i.e. mobile homes, houses without cellars, etc.)  You find this to be true when you analyze disasters that have hit Haiti, Bangladesh, and other impoverish places.  You also find this to be true in war zones, etc.

So, why in a time of regional natural disaster did God instruct Elijah to ask a widow for her last meal?  This seems utterly insensitive.  The answer is that God delights in giving good gifts to those who put their faith in him.  Sometimes God asks us for something when we feel we have nothing left to give him.  He asks because he's giving us an opportunity to exercise faith in Him which will bring blessing.

This widow and her son were saved from starvation because she was asked to give what little she had.  What is God asking from you?

¹⁵ She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. ¹⁶ For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.