Ordained for This!

By Nerissa Golden

Ordained for This! guides women to a new understanding of how to see themselves the way God sees us. Through the story of the Widow of Zarephath, Nerissa shows us why we no longer need to be our own hero and how a new awareness of our special place in God's heart releases us to live fulfilled, protected, provided for and on purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nerissa Golden
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215429778

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

When we talk about the heroes of the bible, the Widow of Zarephath is not one who usually gets mentioned. But Jesus did in Luke 4: 24-26.

²⁴ Truly I tell you, he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.

In the verses prior, Jesus had walked into the temple and declared that He was the fulfilment of Isaiah 61:1-2.

¹"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; ² To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord..."

This proclamation and his subsequent declaration that prophets have no honour at home gets Jesus thrown out of the temple. He would have been killed if he had not made himself scarce, as older generations say.

This widow has long fascinated me. It really was not on purpose; I wasn’t impressed with her story. Here we go again, another woman needing to be rescued.

This woman, whose husband was dead and was left to raise her son alone usually gets preached about when we are talking about sacrificial giving. In fact, it was always the story that the television evangelists turned to when they were making their final appeal for that miracle offering. Don’t you have a need? Give as this woman gave and watch God do wonderful things for you, they would declare.

For many years, this is how I saw this story. Through the eyes of preachers who were once again harping on downtrodden women to make the sacrifices. It seems that was the price we paid to love God, always sacrificing, giving of our last.

But year after year, the Holy Spirit would take me to this passage of scripture and while I enjoyed the story, I was not getting the message. I saw myself in this story but always as the one in desperate need of a rescue. However, this story is much more than that.

I want to share with you what I have come to discover from this amazing story. I want to show you why you have been ordained for this time and how everything you already have is all you will need to change your world.

Let us begin by looking at the passage in 1 Kings 17 in the King James Version. I will use various translations throughout the book for emphasis, but none detract from the message I want you to receive.

"And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall