Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church,
Speaker 1: and this is our podcast and I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God has moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to preach to you guys today. You
Speaker 1: can have a seat if you're here with us. It's
Speaker 1: been several months since I've been on stage and gotten
Speaker 1: to speak to you all. But in that time, our
Speaker 1: pastor has been preaching his heart out. Not only has
Speaker 1: he preached almost every weekend for the first half of
Speaker 1: this year, but what you don't see is that in
Speaker 1: the meantime he's writing songs in his spare time, and
Speaker 1: he's producing albums that we're playing in our headphones and
Speaker 1: in our cars and in our homes on repeat. And
Speaker 1: we got to hear all those songs first here at Elevation.
Speaker 1: Well most of them of them were like surprises. But
Speaker 1: in the sermons of just Been, we are so spoiled
Speaker 1: type it in the chat, let me know where you're
Speaker 1: watching from, and this type spoiled, rotten, And I know
Speaker 1: My husband already said this, but I want to say
Speaker 1: Happy Mother's Day in the United States. But you know
Speaker 1: you're at elevation. We take this day as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to celebrate all of the women who have impacted our lives.
Speaker 1: I know that Mother's Day isn't always the easiest day
Speaker 1: for a lot of us, but on this day, I
Speaker 1: want us to come and be able to celebrate the
Speaker 1: women who have quietly led and prayed and modeled their
Speaker 1: own faith while they were nurturing hours. And I was
Speaker 1: actually talking to a woman this week, and she was
Speaker 1: telling me her story how she was raised in foster
Speaker 1: care and how she came to know Christ as an
Speaker 1: adult because someone brought her to church. A woman brought
Speaker 1: her to church. And then years later, in another town,
Speaker 1: she met another woman who said, oh, you know God here,
Speaker 1: you need to come to my church. And then when
Speaker 1: she went to that church, the pastor's wife, she said,
Speaker 1: she just took me under her wing, and she taught
Speaker 1: me about what faith looks like in everyday life. These
Speaker 1: are the mothers that we celebrate today, the grandmothers who
Speaker 1: prayed for us, the moms who dragged us to church,
Speaker 1: the youth pastor's wife, or the small group leader who
Speaker 1: said the same things that our moms were saying to us,
Speaker 1: but we thought it was so much better when they
Speaker 1: said it. The woman who showed you how to be
Speaker 1: a godly mom, or the college Bible study leader, the
Speaker 1: prank coworker, like all of these women who had shaped
Speaker 1: our faith. That's who we celebrate today. So it was
Speaker 1: invited to a gathering for women in ministry back in March.
Speaker 1: And while we were in the middle of worship, and
Speaker 1: we were singing, and it was it wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of people, but we were worshiping, and I just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I felt like the Lord said to me,
Speaker 1: I want you to preach on the widow with the jars.
Speaker 1: And so I was, well, okay. And the song wasn't
Speaker 1: about anything, and I was like, okay. So I got
Speaker 1: off my phone and I made myself a note Widow
Speaker 1: with the Jars Mother's Day. And so later when I
Speaker 1: was remembering that, I thought, well, let me look, where
Speaker 1: is that story the woman with the jars? And so
Speaker 1: we got out my Bible and when I saw that
Speaker 1: it was in Second King's four, I remembered all of
Speaker 1: the amazing sermons that Pastor Steven has preached on this passage.
Speaker 1: And I was like, good, really, are you sure? And
Speaker 1: so I just said a prayer and it went something
Speaker 1: like this, Dear Lord, please give all the people this
Speaker 1: weekend temporary amnesia and let them forget every sermon that
Speaker 1: Stephen Verdick has preached on this passage. Amen, like you've
Speaker 1: never prayed for a parking space or a test that
Speaker 1: you didn't study for. It's all right. God hears. He
Speaker 1: doesn't always say yes, but he hears. He hears our cry.
Speaker 1: So let's get to the scripture and let's read Second
Speaker 1: Kings chapter four. Let's look at this woman, Second Kings
Speaker 1: chapter four. You know, she doesn't even have a name.
Speaker 1: The Bible just calls her the widow. She's also a mom,
Speaker 1: and I'm praying today that this will inspire not just
Speaker 1: the moms, but the women and the men, all of us.
Speaker 1: Let's read it together. The wife of a man from
Speaker 1: the company of the Prophets cried out to Elijah, your husband,
Speaker 1: my servant is dead, and you know that he revered
Speaker 1: the Lord, but now his credit is coming to take
Speaker 1: my two boys as his slaves. Alisha replied, to her,
Speaker 1: How can I help you? Tell me? What do you
Speaker 1: have in your house? Your servant has nothing there at all,
Speaker 1: she said, except a little jar of olive oil. Lord,
Speaker 1: we come to you on this Mother's Day and we
Speaker 1: just want to take a minute first, God, to just
Speaker 1: thank you for all of the faith filled mothers that
Speaker 1: you have brought along our paths. Without them, we would
Speaker 1: not know you. Without their faith, we would not have
Speaker 1: our own. Thank you, God that you provide exactly who
Speaker 1: we need at every single stage of our lives. We
Speaker 1: open up our hearts. We want to hear from you today.
Speaker 1: Open up our eyes, let us see the things that
Speaker 1: you want to speak to us. Holy Spirit, Come speak
Speaker 1: to us in that intimate personal way that you always do.
Speaker 1: It's in Jesus name. I pray Amen. So my mom's
Speaker 1: here today, Happy mothers, say, Mom, I love you. I'm
Speaker 1: about to talk about you. Have you ever thought about
Speaker 1: all the weird things that you picked up from your mom,
Speaker 1: things that seem to be like embedded in your psyche
Speaker 1: that you can never change. Like okay, so here's when
Speaker 1: my mom never pays full price for anything, Like she's
Speaker 1: that woman that shops the sale cart at the grocery store,
Speaker 1: and she just taught me how to find a good bargain. Now,
Speaker 1: this could be a good or a bad thing, depending
Speaker 1: on how many bargains you find. But that's just one
Speaker 1: of the things that my mom taught me. Another thing
Speaker 1: that my mom taught me was how to rationalize my fears.
Speaker 1: We grew up in Florida, and in Florida there's really
Speaker 1: bad storms all the time, and I remember, even during
Speaker 1: a hurricane, feeling like my mom was not afraid. I
Speaker 1: felt safe because my mom was not afraid. She might
Speaker 1: have been afraid, I don't know, but she didn't show it.
Speaker 1: And she taught me how to handle my fear and
Speaker 1: how to really think through practically about the things that
Speaker 1: I was afraid of. But there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: got from my mom that's caused a little bit of
Speaker 1: friction in my marriage, and that is my inability to
Speaker 1: notice when my gas tank is getting low. You see,
Speaker 1: Stephen never lets his gas tank drop below a corter
Speaker 1: of a tank, and really he never lets his phone
Speaker 1: drop below fifty percent. I don't know how he does it,
Speaker 1: but he just likes a full tank of gas and
Speaker 1: he just loves it. And every single time that I
Speaker 1: have been with him getting gas in the twenty plus
Speaker 1: years that I have known this man. He gets back
Speaker 1: in the car, he shuts the door, and he takes
Speaker 1: a breath, and he goes there's nothing like a full
Speaker 1: tank of gas. And he's not trying to make me laugh.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just really it's just extremely satisfying to him.
Speaker 1: Am I joking? He says it every single time. So
Speaker 1: then me, on the other hand, I just I don't
Speaker 1: get it. I'm just perfectly fine with driving after the
Speaker 1: gaslight comes on. I get it from my mom. I
Speaker 1: have a picture to show you of the van that
Speaker 1: my mom drove when I was a kid. Anybody else
Speaker 1: did your parents have a family car like this? There
Speaker 1: are so many great things about this picture. Okay, I
Speaker 1: just want to leave it up here just so we
Speaker 1: can soak everything in. Here. Are my parents looking actually
Speaker 1: quite stylish, and your tennis shoes are really white. It's
Speaker 1: about nineteen ninety and we are on one of our
Speaker 1: epic camping vacations. Okay. On this particular family vacation, we
Speaker 1: drove from Miami, Florida to Glacier National Park in Montana,
Speaker 1: pulling not pictured a pop up camper that my dad
Speaker 1: bought for a couple hundred dollars. And they also thought
Speaker 1: it was a good idea to bring along our family dog.
Speaker 1: You can't really see her at start, but she's even
Speaker 1: in the picture. But this van, it's all about the van.
Speaker 1: This van was epic. Inside of the van, there were
Speaker 1: two captain's chairs. There were curtains in this van, and
Speaker 1: in the back there was a table, not a table,
Speaker 1: a bench that folded down into a bed. But the
Speaker 1: really special thing about this van and had two gas tanks.
Speaker 1: Why do you need to put two gas tanks in
Speaker 1: a vehicle, I'm not sure, but this car had two
Speaker 1: gas tanks. And I have vivid memories. My sister's in here.
Speaker 1: Both my sisters are here today. They will attest to
Speaker 1: this of my mom driving in city traffic and saying, oh, shoot, girls,
Speaker 1: we're on empty. And then she would say, let me
Speaker 1: switch over to the other table, and she would pull
Speaker 1: this lever. It would go good, and and but that
Speaker 1: take was always empty too, and she and so then
Speaker 1: she would she would she would turn off the AC
Speaker 1: and we would have to roll down the windows and
Speaker 1: just pray that we made it to the nearest gas station,
Speaker 1: but I do the same thing. Recently, my gas light
Speaker 1: came on, but I was running late. Another thing I
Speaker 1: think my sorry mom. I was running late to take
Speaker 1: one of our kids to a game, and I was like,
Speaker 1: we ain't got time to get gas, and so I
Speaker 1: kept driving and the field was like way out in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere, and so I dropped the cand
Speaker 1: I was like, you got to get out. So I
Speaker 1: dropped them off and and I kid you not, I
Speaker 1: turned off the A C. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: the AC uses gas, but that's what my mom did.
Speaker 1: So I turned off the AC and I just prayed
Speaker 1: that I would make it to the nearest gas stations. Today,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about running on m D.
Speaker 1: Have you ever prayed your way to the end of
Speaker 1: a day and then just felt like you have to
Speaker 1: do that all over again. If you ever felt like
Speaker 1: you cannot be everything that everyone needs you to be,
Speaker 1: like you just have nothing left to give. And it's
Speaker 1: not just moms who feel this way. We all have
Speaker 1: people in our lives who need us. Some of the
Speaker 1: people in our lives need us to meet their physical needs,
Speaker 1: some of them need us to meet their emotional needs.
Speaker 1: Some people depend on us to bring energy. Some people
Speaker 1: depend on us to bring that spiritual insight. Some of
Speaker 1: the people in our lives need food and transportation, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they need us to do all of that and
Speaker 1: provide financially at the same time. And meanwhile, we're fighting
Speaker 1: our own battles and we're wondering how we can make
Speaker 1: ends meet, and we are I'm on that doing enough?
Speaker 1: Am I enough? And all of these feelings can be
Speaker 1: really overwhelming, and you can just feel drained. There are
Speaker 1: days where I feel empty. I feel like I've spent
Speaker 1: the day leading and working and trying to be creative,
Speaker 1: and then I pick up my kids from school and
Speaker 1: I have to figure out what we're gonna eat and
Speaker 1: who has what activities, and if Steven takes Abby to softball,
Speaker 1: then I can take the boys to their e groups
Speaker 1: and I'll take Graham first, and then I'll get Elijah,
Speaker 1: and then tomorrow we have this and this and this,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just shot. That's one kind of empty. But then there's
Speaker 1: another kind of empty, and that's the kind where on
Speaker 1: top of all of those things, you're carrying an extra weight.
Speaker 1: Maybe you have a health issue, and you just you
Speaker 1: have migraines. You have to just push through all the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're grieving, maybe you're going through a divorce, and
Speaker 1: you just wake up every morning and you open your
Speaker 1: eyes and you remember the pain of the season that
Speaker 1: you're in and you can pretend that everything's okay for
Speaker 1: a little while, but you're just not sure how much
Speaker 1: longer you can even do that, and the emptiness suddenly
Speaker 1: makes you aware of your loneliness. That's where our widow is.
Speaker 1: Her husband, a good man, is dead, and she has
Speaker 1: become the thing that women of this period of history
Speaker 1: dreaded the most. She's a widow. Becoming a widow meant
Speaker 1: the loss of your livelihood, and your best hope was
Speaker 1: for one of your sons to care for you. Her
Speaker 1: sons were too young to care for her, and now
Speaker 1: she's going to lose them too because she can't pay
Speaker 1: her debts. These boys needed her and she was failing.
Speaker 1: Have you ever felt the weight of other people needing you.
Speaker 1: She's out of money, she's out of ideas, she's out
Speaker 1: of time, And then, not to mention a long time ago,
Speaker 1: she ran out of joy and hope and strengthen. My
Speaker 1: heart just goes out to this woman. This was not
Speaker 1: the way she thought her life would go. She married
Speaker 1: a prophet, a man who had devoted his life to God.
Speaker 1: And when you give your life to God, bad things
Speaker 1: are not supposed to happen to you, right. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she was angry, but I'm angry for her.
Speaker 1: She was faithful, but she was suffering, and she knew
Speaker 1: things were about to get a lot worse. Have you
Speaker 1: ever been faithful to God and felt like you were
Speaker 1: still just coming up empty? How do you keep going
Speaker 1: when you feel like you have nothing left? And this
Speaker 1: is what I've been wrestling with God this week. What
Speaker 1: do I do when I feel empty? Maybe your situation
Speaker 1: isn't life or death like hers, but you know what
Speaker 1: it feels like to be a the end of yourself
Speaker 1: and to have people depending on you. You know what
Speaker 1: it feels like to have tried everything, but your life
Speaker 1: feels like a never ending loop of wake, work, sleep,
Speaker 1: and you have no joy and you have no hope left.
Speaker 1: And I want you to know this today. God does
Speaker 1: some of his best work when I feel the most empty.
Speaker 1: So today, if you're like me and you feel empty,
Speaker 1: I want to walk you through these seven little verses
Speaker 1: and share with you what the Lord showed me to
Speaker 1: do when I feel like I'm running on empty and
Speaker 1: here they are. I'm going to give you all three
Speaker 1: up front. Cry out, reach out, pour out, cry out,
Speaker 1: reach out, pour out. Let's look back. The first verse,
Speaker 1: the wife of the man from the company of the
Speaker 1: Prophets cried out to Elisha, your servant, my husband is dead,
Speaker 1: and you know that he revered the Lord, but now
Speaker 1: his creditor is coming to take my two boys as
Speaker 1: his slaves. When you feel empty, first thing you have
Speaker 1: to do is cry out to God. Seems really simple,
Speaker 1: but for some reason, this is not the first thing
Speaker 1: that we do. I'm just gonna be honest with you, guys.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I feel empty, I don't cry out to
Speaker 1: God because I'm too too busy pretending like everything's okay.
Speaker 1: And at first I'm like, I'm pretending to myself. You know,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's fine, everything's good, everything's good. And I
Speaker 1: think subconsciously, I make my life more full so I
Speaker 1: don't have to feel the emptiness. You ever done this,
Speaker 1: And so I say yes to the extra sports team,
Speaker 1: and I say yes to the wedding shower, I say
Speaker 1: yes to organizing the neighborhood garage sale. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: busyness does not remedy emptiness. It might mask it for
Speaker 1: a little while, but in the end I only feel
Speaker 1: more empty. And now I'm also over committed and tired
Speaker 1: and irritable and feeling like no one wants to help
Speaker 1: me with all the dumb stuff that I said yes to,
Speaker 1: And then everything everyone else says just gets on my
Speaker 1: nerves and so I isolate myself even more. Am I
Speaker 1: alone up here? Let me know? Because now I'm isolated
Speaker 1: and I'm pretending like everything is awesome because I just
Speaker 1: I just I just don't. I don't want to, I
Speaker 1: don't wanna, just don't want to deal with everything. And
Speaker 1: so when somebody sees me and they're like, how are
Speaker 1: you guys doing, I'm like, oh, we're great, because deep
Speaker 1: down I don't really even think that they care that
Speaker 1: or maybe maybe just not that they don't care, but
Speaker 1: they maybe they can't. I don't think they can relate.
Speaker 1: But then I start believing that no one cares, and
Speaker 1: now I feel empty and alone. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just wonder if this, if this woman tried to pretend
Speaker 1: like everything was okay. How long did she keep that up?
Speaker 1: Everyone knew that she was struggling. Her husband had died,
Speaker 1: so they all knew that, But at least for a
Speaker 1: little while, she had been able to meet make ends meet.
Speaker 1: We know she had debt. Maybe she borrowed money after
Speaker 1: her husband died, thinking that somehow, some way she would
Speaker 1: make it up. We can even infer that she sold
Speaker 1: off everything of value in her home, but maybe she
Speaker 1: was able to do that and hide that too, because
Speaker 1: she's trying to protect her family from shame, trying to
Speaker 1: protect her children from fear, and she's carrying everything on
Speaker 1: her own two shoulder. She's trying to be a mom
Speaker 1: and a dad and failing at both. And so one
Speaker 1: day she comes to the end of her rope and
Speaker 1: she cries out to the prophet Elijah. And so many
Speaker 1: times in the Bible we see this phrase, cry out
Speaker 1: to God. And Peter was walking on water and he
Speaker 1: began to think. The Bible tells us that he cried
Speaker 1: out to Jesus when the blind man wanted to get healed,
Speaker 1: he cried out to Jesus. And every single time what
Speaker 1: happens Jesus responds Psalm thirty four. David said, the poor
Speaker 1: man cried out, and the Lord saved him out of
Speaker 1: all his troubles. But why is it that crying out
Speaker 1: to God is the last resort instead of my first resort.
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that we don't cry
Speaker 1: out to God is maybe at our court we don't
Speaker 1: believe that he can or maybe not can, but we
Speaker 1: don't believe that he will do anything for us. And
Speaker 1: maybe you prayed before and things got worse. Maybe you
Speaker 1: ask God to change the situation and it is still
Speaker 1: the same, and because things didn't turn out the way
Speaker 1: that you had hoped this time, maybe you'll you know
Speaker 1: what this, I'm just gonna do it myself. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna muscle this situation. I hate it when I do this.
Speaker 1: I hate it because I end up becoming that manipulative, controlling,
Speaker 1: complaining woman. And then I wonder why nobody wants to
Speaker 1: be around me, and nobody wants to listen to me,
Speaker 1: and nobody understands me. The problem with me trying to
Speaker 1: find in people what I'm supposed to find in God
Speaker 1: is that it just makes me more disappointed in the
Speaker 1: people in my life and it's not their fault. So
Speaker 1: now I'm frustrated with my situation and I'm disappointed with
Speaker 1: the people around me because they don't understand me. And
Speaker 1: then I wonder why I feel lonely. It's because people
Speaker 1: were not meant to take the place of God in
Speaker 1: our lives. There's a space in your life that only
Speaker 1: God can fill when you cry out to him. I
Speaker 1: told you one of the verses in Psalm thirty four.
Speaker 1: But Psalm thirty four seventeen says the righteous cry out,
Speaker 1: and the Lord hears them and delivers them from all
Speaker 1: their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted
Speaker 1: and saves those who are crushed in spirit. God hears
Speaker 1: your cry. Just let that sink in for a minute.
Speaker 1: He hears you. He's not ignoring you, and He is
Speaker 1: going to deliver you. It may not be the way
Speaker 1: that you imagine, it may not be when you want
Speaker 1: it to happen, but He will deliver you. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I think that I prolonged my deliverance simply because I
Speaker 1: just I'm just being stubborn and I don't cry out
Speaker 1: to God. He hears you. He stands by waiting to
Speaker 1: deliver you. You know why. Because he's close. What did
Speaker 1: to say? He's close to the brokenhearted? Here's you. Because
Speaker 1: he's close, he hears you, because he's with you. You
Speaker 1: may feel alone, but you are not alone. A couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, we were going through a struggle within
Speaker 1: our family, and people knew that we were struggling, but
Speaker 1: they didn't really know how painful it was. And I
Speaker 1: remember sitting in our living room on the couch crying,
Speaker 1: not crying out to God, just crying. And I started
Speaker 1: journaling about it. And I got out that journal the
Speaker 1: other day and I wrote some things in that journal
Speaker 1: that were really wrong. I told God that I was disappointed.
Speaker 1: I told God that I was scared. But also in
Speaker 1: those pages, I would get a verse and I would
Speaker 1: write it down and I would pray it over the situation.
Speaker 1: And I said things in that journal to God that
Speaker 1: I didn't say to anyone else. And then I just
Speaker 1: got up and went about my day, drive my tears
Speaker 1: and kept going. And in the middle of the valley,
Speaker 1: it didn't necessarily feel like God was with me. I
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily feel his presence. But this week, when I
Speaker 1: was reading through the journal, I was just flooded with
Speaker 1: gratefulness and the realization that he was right there with
Speaker 1: me in that darkness. He was listening to me. I
Speaker 1: was poor, bring out my heart. He was giving me
Speaker 1: those verses. And he's with you too. He's close. If
Speaker 1: you're broken hearted today, he's close. Look at verse two.
Speaker 1: Elijhah replied to her, how can I help you? Tell me?
Speaker 1: What do you have in your house? Your servant has
Speaker 1: nothing at all, she said, except a small jar of
Speaker 1: olive oil. When she cried out to the prophet. He
Speaker 1: asked her two questions. Did you see them? The first one,
Speaker 1: I like, how can I help you? Well, God, it's
Speaker 1: like I said, my husband's dead. They're coming to take
Speaker 1: my sons away. I need help. I need provision. More specifically,
Speaker 1: I need to pay off my creditors. You know what.
Speaker 1: It's okay, And actually it's important to get really specific
Speaker 1: with God because sometimes I think we cry out to
Speaker 1: him and we don't even you know what we want.
Speaker 1: What can I do for you? He said? Second question,
Speaker 1: I don't like as much, what do you have in
Speaker 1: your house? I think one of the hardest lessons that
Speaker 1: I've had to learn in my walk with God is
Speaker 1: that when I do cry out to him. The first
Speaker 1: thing he wants me to work on is me. And
Speaker 1: the craziest thing is when I work on me slowly,
Speaker 1: I start to see my situation change. I learned this
Speaker 1: in my marriage. When I change me, I change us.
Speaker 1: And then I found out it works in all my relationships.
Speaker 1: It works in my job. When I change me, I
Speaker 1: change us. But most of the time I'm lazy and
Speaker 1: I just want God to fix my problems. I don't
Speaker 1: want to participate in the process. God just fix him,
Speaker 1: fix her. I need a new boss. That's just not
Speaker 1: how God works, not in my experience. This widow, she
Speaker 1: cried out she needed provision, provision vision. God wanted her
Speaker 1: to see what she already had, even if it was
Speaker 1: something that seemed insignificant to her. You are always a
Speaker 1: part of your solution. What do you have in your house?
Speaker 1: Elijah said, go around and ask all of your neighbors
Speaker 1: for empty jars. Don't just ask for a few. Okay,
Speaker 1: So she cried out to God. Then then she reached
Speaker 1: out to others. Some of us are really great at
Speaker 1: reaching out, but we forget to cry out to God first.
Speaker 1: Others of us will cry out to God all day long,
Speaker 1: but reach out none of your business. Now. I want
Speaker 1: to qualify what reaching out actually means because we live
Speaker 1: in a very strange world and social media has gotten
Speaker 1: us a little mixed up. Don't don't don't hear me
Speaker 1: say the wrong thing. Okay, you can put your prayer
Speaker 1: updates on your page, but the real people who love you,
Speaker 1: who for you and support you and ask you how
Speaker 1: your appointment went. Those are the people that are with
Speaker 1: you on your journey and they are a part of
Speaker 1: your healing. People will comment on your post, but comments
Speaker 1: do not replace conversation. I don't believe that this woman
Speaker 1: went out into the streets of her neighborhood and shouted
Speaker 1: any jars, give me all your jars. How do you
Speaker 1: think she got those jars? She went around and she
Speaker 1: knocked on each door. Maybe she made up a speech
Speaker 1: and said the same thing to every single person. That's okay, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: I know this seems kind of odd. You know, my
Speaker 1: husband died and you might imagine I'm having a hard
Speaker 1: time anyway, the Elijah Elisha asked me to go around
Speaker 1: and ask for any extra jars that you might have.
Speaker 1: I know this seems weird, but do you have any
Speaker 1: lying around that you don't want. Reaching out means sharing something, Yes,
Speaker 1: even if you say the exact same thing to everyone
Speaker 1: who asks. Reaching out does not mean sharing everything. When
Speaker 1: you cry out, you say everything. She told the prophet,
Speaker 1: everything down to the fact that she had the only
Speaker 1: thing of value that she had in the whole world
Speaker 1: was a little bit of jar, a little bit of
Speaker 1: oil in a jar. But she went around to her neighbors.
Speaker 1: She reached out, and she asked for some jars. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that the enemy has tried
Speaker 1: to steal from us during this last year is community.
Speaker 1: One year ago, we went inside our houses, we shut
Speaker 1: the doors, and the only thing that we had to
Speaker 1: connect with people were glass screens. But you cannot stay there.
Speaker 1: If you stay on screens, you're just shouting for jars.
Speaker 1: Affirm me, compliment me, agree with me. That's not reaching out.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, I ran into a really really good
Speaker 1: friend of mine that I hadn't seen since Christmas, and
Speaker 1: we've been friends for fifteen years, and I knew through
Speaker 1: Instagram that they were going through a really tough season.
Speaker 1: This couple has three biological children and three and two
Speaker 1: foster children, and I knew that recently the husband's mom
Speaker 1: had been diagnosed with ALS, and I knew that they
Speaker 1: were helping care for the mom. So this past weekend,
Speaker 1: we run into each other at our kids' sporting events
Speaker 1: and we hugged and I looked her in the eyes
Speaker 1: and I said, how was it going? And she looked
Speaker 1: at me and she said, well, mom has moved in
Speaker 1: with us. She needs round the clock care. And honestly,
Speaker 1: this is the hardest thing that I have ever gone through.
Speaker 1: But we're good. And you know I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: offer any words of wisdom. I just listened to her.
Speaker 1: I told her that she was one of the strongest
Speaker 1: people I know. And now I know how to pray
Speaker 1: for them, and now I know I need to check
Speaker 1: on them, bring them dinner, send them door dash, whatever
Speaker 1: floats your boat. We need face to face interaction with others.
Speaker 1: There is no substitute for that. And you might not
Speaker 1: need it now, but have you ever thought that maybe
Speaker 1: somebody else might need it from you right now? And also,
Speaker 1: there will come a time in your life because into
Speaker 1: every life the rainfalls at some point and you're going
Speaker 1: to need to lean on the support of others. They
Speaker 1: don't need to know everything. But if they don't know anything,
Speaker 1: how can they offer support? And then you're just going
Speaker 1: to feel alone. Do not let the enemy tell you
Speaker 1: that you're alone. You're not a one that's a lie.
Speaker 1: What do you have that's a little bit of oil
Speaker 1: and some neighbors? Verse four. Then go inside and shut
Speaker 1: the door behind you and your son's pour oil into
Speaker 1: all the jars, and as each is filled, put it
Speaker 1: to one side. You see, it's important to reach out
Speaker 1: and ask for jars. But there comes a time in
Speaker 1: your life and in your healing process where you have
Speaker 1: to shut the door and let God work a miracle.
Speaker 1: The neighbors knew what they didn't know. You know, you
Speaker 1: can be vulnerable with people and still have privacy. I
Speaker 1: get it. Not everyone needs to know everything. Some of
Speaker 1: you need to hear that. Not everyone needs to know everything.
Speaker 1: But there are some people in your life that you
Speaker 1: can't hide from. Who was with her when she shut
Speaker 1: the door, her sons, her boys, And I wonder how
Speaker 1: much her boys knew about their situation. I wonder how
Speaker 1: much she tried to keep from them. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: the people close to us, the people who are closest
Speaker 1: to us who are watching us fight a battle, what
Speaker 1: looks you know, what feels like weakness to us, it
Speaker 1: looks like strength to them. In her weakest moment, she
Speaker 1: was building their faith. She left him the prophet, and
Speaker 1: shut the door behind her and her son's They brought
Speaker 1: her the jars. They brought the jars to her, and
Speaker 1: she kept pouring. I thought I would have my boys
Speaker 1: come up here and illustrate this. Guys, bring me my jars,
Speaker 1: cry out, reach out. Now it's time to pour out.
Speaker 1: Let's live in this for a second. All she had
Speaker 1: was a little bit of oil, and if you think
Speaker 1: about it, it wasn't enough to do anything with. But
Speaker 1: it was all she had. And when you're in survival mode,
Speaker 1: your instinct is to hoard everything you have, every resource,
Speaker 1: every dollar, every minute, every word. You keep it to yourself.
Speaker 1: But the prophet said, poor. Okay, So this is my
Speaker 1: son Elijah. He's almost sixteen, yeah, taller than me. This
Speaker 1: is our middle child, Graham, he's thirteen and also taller
Speaker 1: than me. I have heels on, but I think you're
Speaker 1: still taller than me. Okay, such a weird thing when
Speaker 1: your children get taller than you. I just can't explain.
Speaker 1: So Elijah, you're gonna stand here and you're gonna hand
Speaker 1: me the jars. Graham, you're gonna stand here and you're
Speaker 1: gonna take the jars from me and put them on
Speaker 1: the shelf. I love these boys, I love them more
Speaker 1: than I ever thought possible, and I would do anything
Speaker 1: for them. But pouring out is scary. What if I
Speaker 1: pour out and I have nothing left for myself? What
Speaker 1: if no one recognizes me? What if no one appreciates me.
Speaker 1: If you're waiting for to be appreciated, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: waiting a long time. The prophet said, keep pouring. And
Speaker 1: sometimes when we feel empty, it's because we feel lost.
Speaker 1: We feel like maybe we have nothing to contribute. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, ten years ago, to be exact,
Speaker 1: I was feeling lost. We had planted our church fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, and when we did that, I involved in
Speaker 1: every single detail. We didn't have enough people, so it
Speaker 1: was all hands on deck. I was a worship leader,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, I was a teacher and e kids.
Speaker 1: And in the very early days of our church we
Speaker 1: had stopped meeting at my kitchen table. I knew everything
Speaker 1: that was going on. At our church. But as the
Speaker 1: church grew and we were able to hire more people
Speaker 1: who could sing, and you know, we were able to
Speaker 1: buy a table and get an office space for our staff,
Speaker 1: and our family started to grow. I gradually began to
Speaker 1: step away and take care of our family, and I
Speaker 1: love being at home with our toddlers. But I felt
Speaker 1: left out. I felt like everyone else was having a
Speaker 1: blast without me, and like I didn't know anything that
Speaker 1: was going on anymore. And I just felt like I
Speaker 1: had nothing to contribute, and I wanted to be asked
Speaker 1: to do something like lead something, or organize something, or
Speaker 1: maybe be on the worship team again, which never happened.
Speaker 1: And I started to have a pity party because no
Speaker 1: one was picking up on the hints that I was dropping.
Speaker 1: I've never been there before, and I remember one day
Speaker 1: just realizing, wait a minute, I mean, I don't really
Speaker 1: have that much time anyway, But I could do what
Speaker 1: we're asking everyone else in the church to do right now,
Speaker 1: which was lead an EE group. I did have a
Speaker 1: lot of time, but I had one evening a week,
Speaker 1: so I started an EE group for young married women
Speaker 1: here Graham and I started to pour every day. I
Speaker 1: was wiping noses, and I was cutting food into tiny
Speaker 1: little pieces. But every Tuesday night, I was pouring into
Speaker 1: the women in my homes. You got two and we
Speaker 1: talked about how to be a godly wife, and we
Speaker 1: read books together, and we memorized scripture together. It was
Speaker 1: just a little thing, but I kept pouring. And that
Speaker 1: group came to an end. So I started another group
Speaker 1: and I poured into them. And then I started another
Speaker 1: group and I poured into them. And then what I
Speaker 1: had been teaching all those years, I turned it into
Speaker 1: a little Bible study for the women of our church.
Speaker 1: That one was a little bit more. And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we go through seasons with the emptiness. So it's
Speaker 1: more than just it's more than just the feeling that
Speaker 1: we don't have purpose. Sometimes it is the feeling that
Speaker 1: you don't have enough to make it. And I know
Speaker 1: that some of you un the sound of my voice.
Speaker 1: You're like my friend, and you're going through the hardest
Speaker 1: thing you've ever been through. You're fighting for your life
Speaker 1: and the word of the Lord for you today. Just
Speaker 1: keep pouring. You have to keep pouring, because the miracle
Speaker 1: only happens when you move, because it's while you pour oh,
Speaker 1: I'm out of jars. It's while you pour that you
Speaker 1: experience God's strength and his grace and the joy that
Speaker 1: only comes while you pour, because now you're pouring with
Speaker 1: a purpose. She was pouring for those boys, but she
Speaker 1: was never pouring from a full jar. She was pouring
Speaker 1: from a jar that only had a little bit of oil.
Speaker 1: And if you wait, thanks, guys, if you wait until
Speaker 1: you feel full to pour, you will never experience the
Speaker 1: power of God in your life, and you'll never experience
Speaker 1: the miracle a feeling my God is just pouring through you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when you pour, it does feel like a sacrifice,
Speaker 1: a sacrifice that no one will ever see. You know
Speaker 1: what Jesus said in Luke six point thirty eight. He said,
Speaker 1: give and it will be given unto you a good measure.
Speaker 1: Press it down, shaken together, Get that jar full, because
Speaker 1: it will be running over into your lap. Jesus said,
Speaker 1: you just keep giving and I will pour into you.
Speaker 1: Our instinct says, hold on tightly to everything you have,
Speaker 1: But Jesus says, just keep giving. Be generous with your love,
Speaker 1: be generous with your time, be generous with your encouragement.
Speaker 1: When you feel empty, just keep pouring. So here's how
Speaker 1: the story ends. When all the jars were full, she
Speaker 1: said to her sons, bring me another one, but he replied,
Speaker 1: there's not a jar left. Then the oil stopped flowing.
Speaker 1: She went and told the Man of God, and he said,
Speaker 1: go and sell the oil and pay off your debts.
Speaker 1: You and your sons can live on what's left. Can
Speaker 1: I give you a bonus point? Live on what's left?
Speaker 1: See when you're in a pouring season, that season where
Speaker 1: you're fighting for your life and you just keep your
Speaker 1: head down and you keep pouring. You pour when you're tired.
Speaker 1: You pour when you feel like no one notices. You
Speaker 1: pour when everyone else's kids are acting right, but yours.
Speaker 1: You poor when your friend gets pregnant by accident, but
Speaker 1: you still can't get pregnant on purpose. You pour when
Speaker 1: someone else gets the promotions. You pour when you need
Speaker 1: a healing in your own body. And the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, you made it through another day. You don't
Speaker 1: know how, but you did. And one day you turn
Speaker 1: around and you've got a pantry full of oil to
Speaker 1: live on. Live on what's lest. Remember Remember that Bible
Speaker 1: study that I wrote for the women of our church
Speaker 1: when we were in the pandemic. My husband and I
Speaker 1: were just praying about how we could help people during
Speaker 1: this time, Like what else could we do? I said, well,
Speaker 1: I have this little Bible study. So we sent out
Speaker 1: a message on Facebook and thousands of women from all
Speaker 1: over the world responded and for eight weeks, every Tuesday
Speaker 1: night they joined me live and we studied how to
Speaker 1: be a godly wife. Somehow you made it through those
Speaker 1: dark days. But now you see all along, through the
Speaker 1: pain and the confusion and the heartache you've been stockpiling.
Speaker 1: She lost her husband. She's not going to get her
Speaker 1: husband back, but she had something left to live on.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, here's that friendship that I made sitting in
Speaker 1: chemo treatments. And here's the verse that God gave me
Speaker 1: when I was crying on the couch. And here's here's
Speaker 1: the song that I listened to every single day for months.
Speaker 1: And every time I hear that song, it just reminds
Speaker 1: me of the faithfulness of God. And oh oh, here's
Speaker 1: that gratitude journal where I learned how to look for
Speaker 1: the little blessings. Now I get to live on what's
Speaker 1: left a million little miracles. Don't be afraid of the
Speaker 1: empty spaces, because empty is where God does his best work.
Speaker 1: When I look back at the times when I felt
Speaker 1: the most empty, those were the times when my faith
Speaker 1: grew the most. And we get so afraid of being
Speaker 1: empty that we failed to realize that that's exactly where
Speaker 1: God wants us to be. God's like, oh, you feel empty,
Speaker 1: Let's get to work. What do you have now? We
Speaker 1: can work with that. There's a song on the new album.
Speaker 1: You might not have gotten to it yet because it's
Speaker 1: after talking to Jesus and wait on You and shall
Speaker 1: not Want, so you maybe haven't gotten that far in
Speaker 1: the album yet. It's called come Again, and I ask
Speaker 1: our team to come and sing it because I have
Speaker 1: literally had it on repeat for the last two weeks
Speaker 1: because there's this line in the song that says, this
Speaker 1: empty space is what you want it all along, So
Speaker 1: I thought this song might minister to you too. God
Speaker 1: wants to fill that space in your heart today that
Speaker 1: only he can fill. He's here, He's right here in
Speaker 1: this moment. Starts with just crying out. He hears our cries.
Speaker 1: He's with us in our most desperate and our most broken,
Speaker 1: in our most disappointed moments. He doesn't need you to
Speaker 1: get it together for him. Does it need you to
Speaker 1: have a full jar of oil? He wants to comfort
Speaker 1: you where you are right now. He wants to restore
Speaker 1: your joy. He wants to heal your heart. It starts
Speaker 1: when you cry out thank you for joining us. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1: Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You
Speaker 1: can click the link in the description to give now,
Speaker 1: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
Speaker 1: and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You
Speaker 1: can share it with your friends. You can click the
Speaker 1: share button, take a screenshot and share it on your
Speaker 1: social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. God bless you