Salt in my Kitchen....series

 Salt in my Kitchen

by

Jeanette Lockerbie

 

Shut the Door

 

Bible Reading: 2 Kings 4:1-7

 

    A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves." 2 So Elisha said to her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" And she said, "Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil." 3 Then he said, "Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors--empty vessels; do not gather just a few. 4 And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones." 5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. 6 Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." And he said to her, "There is not another vessel." So the oil ceased. 7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest." 

 

How often in the course of a day, especially in summer, does the command "Shut the door" ring out. We shut the door against the inroads of insects, pets, heat (in winter, cold). Springs insure that doors will swing shut even when manipulated by careless or too-tiny hands.

The Shunammite woman in our reading today had a two-fold need to shut her door. A creditor had come to take her two sons as slaves.  She shut in her two boys. She shut out the world around them. A crisis called for nothing less than intervention from on high and she had no intention of letting outside interests rob her of the answer to her fervent prayer. In her extreme need she gladly heeded the voice of Elisha, the man of God. The abundance of oil that God supplied met her need of paying debts.

 

We might well wonder what would have happened had she done everything else God commanded, but had left the door open. Distraction and possibly derision might have moved her to abandon the instructions given by the prophet. We can only speculate, but we do know that unless we deliberately shut out the world's noise there will be little chance to hear the voice of God.

 

Lord, I have shut the door,

Speak now the word

Which in the din and throng

Could not be heard.

 

_William M. Runyan