A few days to the end of 2018, I was reminded of a lesson from the story of Elijah and the Widow at Zerephath, I was reminded that the widow and her son received their miracle from what they had left, not from anything they had lost.

This came back after reading some tweets of people who were honest enough to say they definitely hadn’t crushed all the goals of 2018, but were hoping to do better in 2019 and I got excited at the thought of the lesson because despite all the lows and losses that left the goals underachieved, the best realisation was that ‘what is left’ is enough for the miracle.

Elijah’s words to her were “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have…”

Some of us think that the miracles will come from the whole of whatever, we think it has to come from a perfect and whole us, a perfect bank account, a perfect age, a perfect friend or even a perfect family. We sometimes forget that God doesn’t choose people to work in based on the status of a person but on the availability and willingness of the heart in question.

The losses never contained the miracle, they did contain opportunities but not the miracle. The widows miracle came from the “…handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug”. After the abundance of the flour and oil had been exhausted and she was down to the little left.

Were humans, as such we tend to spend more time on the things and people that did not work and forget the ones that did, we allow the devil rob us of our joy and peace as a result of the losses which sometimes really aren’t our fault, but I’m challenging us to see it from the eyes of Elijah, from the eyes of God, that despite the gravity of the loss, the one that remains is where the miracle will come from.

It will help us be optimistic, to focus on the blessings and not the losses, to remain grateful of the blessings rather than tolerant of the blessings God has bestowed on us and my prayer for us is that even as we remain in this mind frame, “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land”.

This week, we’re choosing to walk in gratitude, in abundance, in the mindset of ‘the remaining’.