Empty Vessels

Today I am praying for nothing. Well, technically, it is something, but that something is nothing. Emptiness. I am praying for emptiness for myself, for my husband, for my children and grandchildren, my brother and his family, my extended family, my church family and all my friends. I am praying for emptiness in the hearts of everyone I know.

I was studying 2 Kings 4:1-7, this morning. A destitute widow sought help from the prophet Elisha. Elisha asked what she did have. A tiny bottle of oil. Pour it out.

Now, those were not his exact words, but I'm trying to paint a picture. Elisha actually instructed her to borrow large vessels from all her neighbors -- empty vessels. "Do not gather just a few." So, she's got this tiny bit of oil swishing around in, let's say, a two-cup measure. Now, I know, if I'm baking and I'm short on something like oil, and I have just enough for my recipe, I'm gonna grab my rubber spatula and I'm going to scrape every last drop out of that two-cup measure. I might even be sure to use a glass measure over something like plastic, so none of that oil gets absorbed into the material and wasted. The last thing I would ever think of doing would be pouring that tiny bit of oil into a clay pot the size of an oil drum. It would run down the insides, be sucked into the porous clay, lay in the cracks and crevices at the bottom; if I'm lucky, I might get half of my oil back. Essentially, I would be pouring my precious oil out to waste. Pour it out.

So much emptiness in this narrative! A widow: no doubt she suffered the emptiness of the loss of her husband. Her sons: their father gone, they lacked their model, their provider, their teacher. Their home: those empty spaces a husband and father used to fill; the empty pantry a provider used to fill. And now, a jar poured out and empty vessels awaiting.

The widow's only response to Elisha's command was obedience:

"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." (v. 5)

What faith! All she had poured out. Empty vessel after empty vessel brought before the flow of rich, salubrious oil. Void after void generously, graciously filled. Emptiness eradicated and vessels brimming with something so much more.

I am praying for emptiness. Old ideas, desires, grudges, presuppositions, expectations, traditions -- all gone, poured out. That God might richly, graciously fill us with something better. I am praying for marriages full of baggage and relationships with our children filled with past mistakes; I am praying for cancer that keeps fighting back and weariness that plagues the body and mind; I am praying for shame and damaged identities, for misunderstanding about who God is, for worldly desires and old habits, for hardness and self-sufficiency, for unforgiveness -- all poured out. Emptiness that God might fill us with something anew. But we must first bring our emptiness to Him. Seek. Obey. Pour it out.