An Unlikely Hero

The Lord said to Elijah, “go and live near the city of Sidon. There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions.” So he went. As he arrived at the gates of the city, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her for a cup of water. As she was on her way, he said :bring me a bite of bread too.” But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I haven’t a single piece of bread in the house, and I only have a handful of flour, and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jar. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I must die of starvation.” (1 Kings 17:8-12)

 

I find this story to be fascinating! Perhaps it is the idea of God using the unlikeliest of hero’s as a means of provision.

1 Kings 17:2-7 says “the Lord used the Ravens to provide Elijah with food, every morning and evening.”

RAVENS….brought him food! How very unlikely!

 

And there’s this widow.

Not just ANY widow, mind you, but a Sidonian woman, (Sidon was an enemy of Israel), living alone with her son; poor, and on the brink of starvation due to the drought.

And God uses her?!

 

Isn’t it just like God to use the unlikeliest of hero’s?

The lowliest of the low.

The undesirable.

The poor.

The ordinary.

The unexpected….to be our savior.

Jesus himself, was an unlikely hero.

No one expected Israel’s savior to be born in a manger, unto a common family, into a meager lifestyle; humble, plain, unappealing to the eye.

Yet, there He was. The One God chose to bring redemption to a lost world. Amazing!

 

Several years ago, our van broke down while on our way home from town. We were only 10 mn away from our house, but as hard as we tried to make our vehicle go the extra mile, it just wasn’t happening. There we sat, on the side of the road, on a hill, in the cold, in the dead of winter, with a car full of littles, and no cell phone!

(This was before the dawn of the cell phone era). Yes, I am THAT old!

 

The hubs and I discussed our options. None of them were very appealing.

As my husband prepared to make the lonely trek home in the cold, to call for help, we watched as car after car passed us by.

Yep. People driving fancy, expensive cars.

People driving your average, everyday cars.

Even people whose car we recognized from our own neighborhood!

No one stopped to ask if we needed help.

By this point, I had blown past the subtle mumbling under my breath, and had burst into a full blown rant, complaining about the selfish, uncaring world we lived in. *Insert drama queen.*

Then suddenly, a truck pulled up beside us.

This wasn’t your average truck. This was an old, loud, beat up truck whose owner was blaring heavy metal music from the windows.

We watched, amused, as a man in his early 40’s, with hair the length of his butt, and an impressive goatee that dripped from his face, jumped out of the truck.

His skin was leathery, and he displayed a canvas of tattoos on his arms and neck.

He wreaked of smoke, and displayed on his shirt was a silhouette of a naked woman.

To say that his appearance was sketchy is an understatement!

But this man was the ONLY person to stop and ask if we needed help!

And so cautiously, we accepted.

With the help of a tow hitch, he was able to easily tow us home. 

Once settled safely there, we offered to give him some money for gas, which he promptly refused.

And then off he went.

Talk about an unlikely hero!

 

What I love about this story of Elijah and the widow is that it proves that God CAN, and often DOES, use the “unexpected,” as a means to answer prayer.

The widow was no one special. Heck, they don’t even give her name! She was simply referred to as “the widow.”

BUT she made herself available; a willing partner in God’s grand scheme.

 

There’s something to be said for obedience, here. Had either person, (Elijah or the lonely widow), decided to disobey the Lord’s command, they could have potentially missed out on something very special.

Elijah could have chosen to argue with God.

“Really God? A starving widow…..from Sidon no less?? Can’t you send me a strong, Hebrew warrior instead?”

But Elijah didn’t complain, that we know of. Instead, he obeyed the Lord, and as a result, he was well cared for, and had plenty to eat throughout his entire stay.

 

The widow, too, could have argued.

“But Lord, I don’t even have enough food to feed my son and I, let alone some stranger from Israel.”

Lucky for her, she too chose to obey the Lord’s command, and as a result of her obedience, not only did she have the privilege of being used of God to bless another, but I Kings 17 also tells us that the Lord used Elijah to raise her dead son back from death to life.

How heartbreaking it would have been had she missed out on such a gift!

It is not unlike God to use the lowly, or the broken, or the average, to do His Kingdom work. He simply looks for those who are willing. #unlikelyhero #heequipsthecalled Share on X

 

So, let me ask…to whom is God sending YOU?

Can I encourage you to be alert, willing, and available.

You never know…YOU might be the “unlikely hero” God chooses to use in the life of another!

 

Let’s talk!

Do you have a story of an unlikely hero coming to your rescue?

Share your story in the comments below, and together let’s be thee inspired!