I remember crying as a kid in frustration over math homework. Sometimes it took quite a while for me to solve an algebra problem. While there’s plenty I’ve forgotten since my last math class, I’m glad to report that I can add, subtract, multiply and divide, and I’m decent with fractions, too. At least I thought I was, until my daughter started third grade. And sometimes I couldn’t help her with math homework. Not because I couldn’t solve the problems, but because I didn’t understand the way she was being taught to solve them.
I’ve noticed that God has a funny way of doing math, too. He picks the smallest things, and says they’re the greatest. He points at the last thing and says it’s the beginning of the sequence. We often aren’t quite sure what to make of that. We think we understand the question, but because we haven’t mastered God’s curriculum, we can’t come up with His answers on our own. When life presents us with a problem, it’s always asking what will we give.
The prophet Elijah was given the task of directly challenging Israel’s worship of the idol Baal. Baal was supposed to be the god who brought rain and good harvests. So Elijah said “You think Baal has power? I’ll show you that God has the real power – there’s a drought coming” (1 Kings 17). That wasn’t a popular message and Elijah had to get out of town.
Eventually he wound up at the gates of Zarephath, where he met a widow gathering sticks for a fire to cook up the last of her food. The drought had made food scarce and a widow with a child didn’t have many resources. The widow had come to the end of her supplies. She didn’t have anything more to give. She didn’t have any expectation that more would come her way.
And then she met Elijah. And he said, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and cook that ‘last meal’, but bake me a little loaf of bread first. Afterward there will still be enough food for you and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says ”There will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!” (1 Kings 17: 13-14)
I don’t know what went through her head. Maybe she thought, we’re going to die anyway, what can it hurt? Or maybe that “Don’t be afraid!” sent a glimmer of hope into her soul. Whatever her thoughts, she made the bread. She put her faith in the promise that the God of Israel would provide for her. The story goes on to record, “No matter how much they used, there was always enough left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah” (1 Kings 17:16).
Think about it – every day the widow was asked to give all that she had. If she had held on to her one thing, she would have wound up with nothing; she and her son would have eaten their bread and then starved. In God’s math, one plus nothing equals nothing. But when the widow gave everything, God multiplied it immeasurably.
God invites us to trust Him so completely that we have the freedom to give Him all that we have. Then what we have, small as it is, becomes more than enough. In God’s math, the thing that has been poured out is full. It’s possible to be so filled with and by God, His limitless-always-going-to-be-more-than-enough supply, that it doesn’t matter how much of ourselves we give away in the face of life’s problems. The flour and oil will never run out. God is never going to run out of resources, so He will always be able to replenish what we’ve given away for Him. Zero plus God equals infinity.
Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving – large or small – it will be used to measure what is given back to you. Luke 6:38