1 Timothy 5.5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and ask God for help. – St. Paul
You don’t have to be a widow to put your hope in God and
continue to pray night and day asking God for help. Widows need not hold a special
place here. However, there is a call to ask widows to look to God for their needs
to be met, and have an expectation that God will provide for them.
In the context, Paul is addressing the dangers of position as opposed to the freedoms of possession. The welfare state screams
position: I am poor, therefore you must come
to my aid! Fair enough, but what is it that has caused you to be poor and
are there any things you can do in the form of “self-help”? In your position of poverty, what is your possession of God?
This is the same Paul that told the Thessalonicans: “Hey, lookit, if you ain’t willing to work,
then you ain’t getting no chow!” (2 Thessalonians 3.10 paraphrased…) So,
there is some expectation of self-help in the Bible, and in Paul’s admonitions
to his congregations. BUT! – self-help will only get us so far – we always need
God’s help.
That is why the widow (who is really in need) cries out
to God night and day. Night is first
in the phrase, because night is usually the worst in our experience.
I go round and round with: do I ask God and then just let it go that I have prayed, or do I, like
the widow, ask God repeatedly for my needs to be met? I think my dogma gets
tangled up in his chain. What I think I learned today is: The Lord’s Prayer says:
“…give us this day, our daily bread…”. That sounds like a daily plea. It isn’t: give me tomorrow my daily bread. Tomorrow never comes; we only ever have
today. Jesus said, “Let tomorrow take care of itself…” in other words, we’ll get to tomorrow, tomorrow; right now,
let’s focus on right now.
So, I do think we daily ask God for what we need, and we
don’t insult Him when we do. Where it gets a little cloudy is when we ask God
for what we already have: Lord, give me
faith. Lord, give me Your Spirit. Lord, give me grace. How much more can He
give us, when He’s given us all He has…
For sure, widow are to be cared for but there is a
difference in position: I’m a widow; and possession: I have God. And we’re all
to live like that.
Father in Heaven,
You have promised to give us what we need. I don’t think You mind when we ask
repeatedly for daily needs. Our daily asking sets the tone for our daily expectation
of Who You are and what You’ve promised. I do think You get concerned when we
worry. I think You get concerned when we ask amiss. But overall, I think You
love us and desire more than anything that we place You in the middle of all
our need-seeking. Like the godly widow, may I freely ask and joyfully receive
what You’ve promised to do for me! Amen
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