Eleventh Hour

   Remember in 1 Kings 17, where the widow and her son are starving, with only a tiny amount of grain left with which to make a final bit of bread, and Elijah asks her for food? She says she is just about to take two sticks, make their last meal, and die?  I've always assumed she was building a fire with the sticks to bake the bread.  But how could you make a fire with two sticks?
   Chaim Bentorah, delving deeper into the wording of the Scripture, explains that in the northern kingdom, where they couldn't worship at the temple, they took two sticks, tied a cloth between them, and placed shewbread inside. The husband and wife (or in this case the mother and son, since the father had died) would each hold one stick and together present the bread before God, similar to what the priests would do with the shewbread in the temple. It was an offering of thanksgiving and worship.
   This woman was offering to God all she had left and asking Him for provision, since without food, she and her son (like many others in this famine-stricken land) would surely die. Chaim says that the word translated die could better be translated 'receive' to not die. She hadn't even had the chance to carry out her plan, before God sent Elijah in answer to her prayer. He always knows what's in our hearts, doesn't He? But why would He wait until the 'eleventh hour' to send her help?  Has that been the case for you, sometimes?  Do you ever feel as if you're left hanging with a prayer on your lips and nothing but the breeze around you in answer?
   Chaim comments on this:  "Sometimes it seems that God waits until the eleventh hour--until you've exhausted all your resources, trying everything you could in the natural. And then one day, when your furniture has been loaded onto the truck to be repossessed, God says to the truck driver, 'Okay, you can put it back.' I mean, that's hard on your heart. But I will tell you one thing:  you will know it was God who delivered you and not your own cleverness. " *
   Then there are those times when you watch the truck drive away, saying "God, what just happened? Why didn't you deliver us?" And He says, "Ah, the story isn't over....Stay tuned.   Sometimes he wants us to learn from Him how better to steward the resources with which He's blessed us. Sometimes He wants to rebuild our lives from the bottom up. Sometimes He wants to provide us with something better than we lost.
   No matter what, He says, "Keep on trusting Me, despite what you see in front of your eyes. There's always more.  More to be learned. More wisdom to be gained.  More to be given. More fruit to be brought forth. I Am the Restorer, the Rebuilder, the Resurrector.
   Whether He saves us in the morning, at noon, at the eleventh hour, in the middle of the night, or in the unseen future, He promises to never leave or forsake us. Take joy in that promise born of His love for you.

*Chaim Bentorah, Hebrew Word Study:  Revealing the Heart of God, p. 135