An Empty Jar, a Barren Womb, and an Open Tomb

If you were planning to feed someone, how likely is it you would have them travel about 100 miles on foot to a widow’s house you knew was about to run out of food? Or if you planned on raising up a great leader for a nation, would your likely choice be a barren woman to give birth to him? As rational humans, we would never make these decisions, because they defy human logic. But for God, whose thoughts and ways are beyond ours, these are exactly the kind of choices that display His wisdom and power.

The story of Elijah and the widow is a powerful example of how God chooses unlikely people to accomplish His purposes. Elijah had spent about three years at Kerith Ravine during the drought God brought on Israel because of their idolatry and rebellion. When the brook dried up, God told him to go to Zarephath in Sidon, where He would find a widow God had chosen to provide him with food. When Elijah arrived, he discovered that she was not in any position to feed him. She had a nearly empty jar of flour and no money to buy any more. In fact, she had only a handful of flour—just enough for her last meal with her son. And after that, she was expecting to die of starvation.

After being miraculously fed by God through ravens for years, he was likely not surprised at God’s choice of this near-destitute woman to supply his needs. Without hesitation, he told her to make the bread and first prepare his meal, and then she and her son could eat. When she acted by faith and did what he asked, the word of the Lord came to him that “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” (1 Kings 17:14). And that is exactly what happened. The flour and oil were refilled day after day, just as the Lord had promised (1 Kings 17:15–16).

Similarly, when Israel was experiencing deep spiritual thirst because of their sin and the oppression of the Philistines, the angel of the Lord came to the home of a barren woman to promise the coming of a son, Samson, who would help deliver Israel from their enemies (Judges 13:5). What appeared to be an impossible situation became the story of God’s miraculous intervention. The Lord opened her barren womb, and she gave birth to one of Israel’s most powerful judges.

We see this same pattern most clearly in the life and work of Jesus. If we were writing the story of salvation, we probably would not have chosen a humble woman, a manger or a cross as the way God would save the world. The cross looked like the ultimate place of weakness and death. But God chose that very place to reveal His greatest power and accomplish our salvation. And then, just when it seemed that death had won, God brought life out of the tomb. The empty tomb became the ultimate reminder that what looks barren or hopeless to us is never beyond God’s ability to redeem and transform.

God’s Power Revealed

If it were up to us, we’d likely choose people who were strong, influential, and wealthy to fulfill important tasks. But God repeatedly chooses those who were weak, insignificant, and poor so that all glory from the miracle would go to Him. These stories remind us that God brings life and salvation out of places where the human eye only sees emptiness, barrenness, and death.

An empty jar, a barren womb, and an empty tomb all remind us that God does His greatest work in people and places that we least suspect. When I find myself in those places, I want to remember that what looks empty and hopeless to me is never beyond God's ability to fill and redeem. And what seems to be dead is never beyond His ability to bring life. If I will look to Him and trust Him, I can have confidence that even my emptiness can become a place where His supernatural power is revealed.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20)

When Defeat Doesn't Mean Disobedience

What do you do when you obey God, certain that you’ve done what He’s asked you to do, and the result is defeat? When this happens, the temptation is to think that God must not be in this, that we must have missed His leading, or this cannot be His will. As a result, we often quit and quickly change direction. But God reveals in Scripture that this is often not the case, and that instead of giving up or coming under condemnation, thinking that our disobedience caused the defeat, He wants us to come to Him with our weeping while at the same time calling out to Him for further wisdom about how to move forward.

Many of us believe that if God has called us to something, the path should be straightforward and easy. But Judges 20 provides a sobering reminder that it is often just the opposite. We can be right in the center of God’s will and still experience painful defeat. 

When the tribes of Israel heard the report of the evil done among the Benjaminites to a fellow Levite and his concubine, who were traveling through their town, they were greatly disturbed. They first appealed to their brothers to release the men who had committed the crime of rape and murder, but the Benjaminites refused. As a result, Israel gathered four hundred thousand soldiers and then went before the Lord to ask who was to first go and fight their enemy. The Lord responded that Judah was to take the lead, so they followed His command and went to battle the next morning expecting victory. But to their surprise, they lost 22,000 men. In shock and despair, they “wept before the Lord until evening” and then prayed again, this time asking Him if they were to go back into battle. Again, God responded positively: “Go up against them” (Judges 20:23).

The Lord’s “yes” seemed again to be His promise that they would succeed. But instead, they experienced another huge loss of 18,000 men on the second day, leaving them more perplexed and discouraged than before. So once again, they went before the Lord, weeping and praying, but this time also offering sacrifices to Him -- which was according to the instructions of God's Word. When they asked if they should keep fighting, the Lord gave them an even more hopeful promise: “Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands” (Judges 20:28).

The missing assurance from the Lord the first two times they inquired of Him became significant when it was present the third time, when He said, “I will give them into your hands.” His additional words of comfort could have been in response to their deeper questions, which initially did not include asking if God wanted them to go to battle, but rather who they should send. God also was trying to teach them that they should approach Him for victory only through the blood of a lamb -- ultimately the Lamb (Revelation 12:11). As they continued to inquire of God and surrendered their hearts to do His will, His counsel moved from the general to the very specific assurance that He was going to fight this battle for them. Yet they never would have heard this message if they had assumed He was not with them or for them and had given up praying and seeking the Lord. It’s possible He was testing their faith to see if they would listen to, trust, and obey Him.

In His sovereign wisdom, God determined that the loss of Israel’s 40,000 soldiers was necessary before they could defeat the Benjaminites. By allowing them to face such a significant loss, they likely saw their own sinfulness, their inability to fight in their own strength, and their great need for the Lord’s gracious help, which comes through the blood of the Lamb. God wanted them to know that He was the righteous judge and that this battle, along with all others, was His. In fact, in Judges 20:35, we read that it was “the Lord [who] defeated Benjamin before Israel.” He gave them wisdom to devise an ambush, and when they counterattacked, He caused the Benjaminites to become terrified and flee.

Israel could have easily assumed after the first and second losses that they were completely out of God’s will. They could have stopped praying, and given up on the battle, or they could have determined to do it in their own strength without Lord’s help. Either way, they would have missed God’s blessings and His best—which can only be experienced through a life of dependence on Him and His presence. Instead, they poured out their hearts, weeping and lamenting over their losses, while looking up to fix their gaze on the Lord, who they knew could lead and comfort them.

Their story reminds me of the importance of seeking God’s will and also staying the path He has called me to until He shows me to move in a different direction. This means refusing to give in to despair when my circumstances do not go as I have planned. At the same time, it involves humbling myself before Him to be willing to grow in my understanding of what He desires. Recently, God has used defeat to teach me greater dependence on Him, allowing losses and suffering to press me into more intense times of prayer and lament—not to win his favor, but to realign my heart to better understand, desire, and obey His will.

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12).

A Planting of the Lord for the Display of His Splendor

God chose an interesting metaphor in Isaiah 61:3 to describe redeemed and restored Israel. He refers to them as “oaks of righteousness, planted by the Lord for the display of his splendor.” Like a mighty oak, they will become strong as they’re rooted in his covenantal love. This beautiful word picture greatly contrasts with the earlier description of Israel as a fruitless vine and a bruised reed, which is swayed and broken by the winds of suffering (Isaiah 5:1–7; 42:3). Through this promise, God points Israel and us forward to the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, who by his Spirit transforms his people for his glory.

As I’ve been meditating on this passage, I’ve been reminded of God’s supreme wisdom and power in fulfilling this once-mysterious promise through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus stood in the synagogue and read Isaiah 61:1–2:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19; Isaiah 61:1–2)

And after reading this passage, he asserted his identity, saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Jesus revealed that he was the long-awaited Messiah who fulfilled Isaiah’s promise.

Planting of the Lord

By declaring himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 61, Christ gives a clearer picture of the lives we are created to live as his beloved, redeemed children, made in his image. In 61:1, we see the state of humanity before the heralding of the Gospel—we are poor, brokenhearted, and captive to sin and shame. But the message the Anointed One brings is one of hope and liberation, announcing the Lord’s favor and comfort for all who grieve. The prognosis is dire, but the healing reveals the sovereign work of God, who has begun to build his kingdom and reverse the curse.

Then in verse 3, we see that this change God promises not only brings blessings but involves the removal of the curse of sin and death. In place of the ashes, God promises through Christ and his Gospel to “bestow on them a crown of beauty” (Isaiah 61:3). Mourning is exchanged for the “oil of joy,” and despair for a “garment of praise” (Isaiah 61:3). Finally, those who receive the Messiah’s message of salvation are given a new identity: “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor” (Isaiah 61:3).

Like a tree that cannot plant itself or cause its own growth, our planting and flourishing is all of God. He makes “righteousness and praise spring up before all the nations” (Isaiah 61:11) by clothing us with his salvation and giving us his “robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). As a result, everyone who sees us recognizes that we are people blessed by the Lord (Isaiah 61:9). 

A New Testament passage that beautifully summarizes this divine exchange outlined in Isaiah 61:3, declares, “He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Through Christ’s redeeming work on the cross and his resurrection, he takes our sin, guilt, and shame, and in their place gives his own glorious righteousness, crediting it to our account as we put our trust in him.

This work of whole-life transformation is done by the same Spirit that anointed Christ and raised him from the dead (Isaiah 61:1). His supernatural power and presence in our lives bring about radical regeneration from darkness and prison to light and freedom, and he then begins the work of strengthening and growing us as his very own oaks of righteousness.

For the Display of His Splendor

Because we’ve been regenerated and established by God, we’re made to flourish for his glory and not our own. When looking at a massive oak, its beauty and splendor reveal God’s wisdom and power and point us to worship the Creator and not the creation itself. In the same way, as our lives are transformed by the Good News, the glory we reveal is meant to point to the One who has made and established us in his image so that we worship him.

The oak tree imagery of Isaiah, which follows the description of the divine exchange, reveals God’s design to not only renew us but to give us a new identity in union with Christ. He begins by restoring what sin has broken and then transforms our identity, remaking us into “oaks of righteousness for the display of his splendor.” As Paul proclaims, we become a new creation in Christ—the old is gone, and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Christ, we become beloved children of God (1 John 3:2).

When it seems God’s kindness toward us has reached its climax, he commissions us to join in the work of our Master. Just as he came to bind up the brokenhearted, heal those crushed in spirit, and proclaim freedom for the captives (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18), so he now sends us out as priests and ministers—a people set apart to declare his goodness and participate in his work of restoration (Isaiah 61:5–6). 

Like the Lord, we’re now equipped to rebuild and restore what has been ruined and “devastated for generations” (Isaiah 61:4). We come with a message of Gospel hope and transformation, fulfilling the age-old prophecy of Isaiah and echoing the words and ministry of Jesus, so that through us the world may see the splendor of the Lord and turn to worship him. 

“For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations" (Isaiah 61:11)