In the rest of 1 Kings 17, we have two miracles. We have the unending flour and oil to feed Elijah and family through the drought, and the widow’s son coming back to life.

God tells Elijah that He’s provided for him through a widow. Elijah goes and comes across a widow and apparently knows this is the right one.

If God’s asking you to do something, you can trust Him to work it out. He’s going to put the widow in your path, like He brought Rebecca out to the well.

This time Elijah speaks God’s direct words, “Thus says the Lord.”

The widow believes him that she will have enough flour and oil. We know she believed his word because she acted on it. We’re deceiving ourselves if we say we have faith and never act on it! They live on the miracle provision for a long time.

Then the widow’s son dies. The widow sees it as a punishment for her sin. She accuses Elijah for bringing to remembrance her sin.

Some people shun a godly person because it convicts them of their sin. Light shines on their dark areas, and people don’t necessarily like that.

We don’t usually think this way today, but it’s always good to ask God if there’s some sin that’s behind the trouble you are facing. There may not be, but there could be. Paul says that people in the church were sick and had died because they hadn’t “rightly discerned the body,” weren’t acting rightly in and as the Body of Christ.

We don’t know what was behind the son’s death, but whatever it was, God was going to turn it around for His glory.

God works everything, even our sin, for our good and His glory if we love God and are called according to His purposes.

Elijah at this point doesn’t have a word from the Lord. He states his disbelief that God would kill her son. He doesn’t think that’s what God is doing in the situation. Then he prays. He just prays and asks God to give the boy life. “O Lord my God, let this child’s life also come into him again.” He stretches himself out on the boy three times, but the response is that God heard Elijah’s voice, not saw what he did.

God heard and answered his prayer, a man, just like us, but who knew he lived in God’s presence.