Beignets, Breakthroughs & Bad Stewardship

There are certain scriptures that comfort me.

Then there are certain scriptures that apparently wake up in the morning and choose violence.

2 Kings 4:1–7 is currently the latter.

A woman comes to Elisha completely overwhelmed. Her husband has died. She has debt she cannot pay. The creditor is coming to take her two sons as payment. This is not a minor inconvenience. This is not “my Amazon package got delayed” adversity. Her entire life is falling apart.

And Elisha asks her a question:

“What do you have in your house?”

Her response?

“Your servant has nothing there at all… except a small jar of olive oil.”

Nothing.

Except.

And suddenly I had to sit with those two words because I wonder how often I have called something “nothing” simply because it did not look like enough.

Nothing… except this gift.

Nothing… except this idea.

Nothing… except this relationship.

Nothing… except this little bit of experience.

Nothing… except this opportunity.

Nothing… except this thing God has already placed in my hands that I have completely discounted because it does not resemble the size of the problem in front of me.

She saw a little oil.

God saw an economy.

And perhaps one of my problems is that I have spent too much time asking God to send me something while overlooking what He already put in the house.

Which immediately made me think about The Princess and the Frog.

Because if anybody understood working with what was already in the house, it was Tiana.

That woman could take some flour, powdered sugar and determination and build an entire dream. Meanwhile, I can have gifts, opportunities, relationships, wisdom, resources, a laptop, WiFi, three notebooks, seventeen ideas and a word from God and still be standing there like:

“Lord… I just feel like I need something.”

Something WHAT, Jazmin?

Because apparently we have inventory.

And this is where 2 Kings 4 started becoming less about the widow and more about me.

Elisha does not give her money.

He gives her a thought.

“Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few.”

Then he tells her to go inside, shut the door behind herself and her sons, and start pouring.

That part matters to me.

Because sometimes I want God to give me the finished product when He is trying to give me the strategy.

I want the miracle.

He gives me instructions.

I want the breakthrough.

He gives me a process.

I want Him to change the situation.

He starts changing the way I think about what I already have.

And I am realizing that sometimes the blessing begins as a thought I am responsible for stewarding.

Lord, give me a thought.

Not another distraction.

Not another emotional reaction.

Not another elaborate scenario I created because somebody took eleven minutes to text me back.

A thought.

A God breathed strategy that changes how I handle what is already sitting in my house.

Because I am learning that having something valuable and knowing how to steward something valuable are two completely different things.

And that applies to far more than money.

I can love God deeply and still mishandle relationships.

I can know Scripture and still communicate poorly.

I can have great character in one area and terrible boundaries in another.

I can be disciplined at work and undisciplined with rest.

I can pour into everybody else and neglect myself.

I can give generously and still be irresponsible.

I can pray for wisdom and then ignore the wisdom because it inconveniences me.

Apparently spiritual maturity is incredibly rude because it refuses to let me pick one category and declare myself healed.

I would personally prefer a punch card.

Ten Bible studies and your communication issues are free.

Unfortunately, that does not appear to be how sanctification works.

Growth is circular, not linear.

God can be developing my character while also confronting my relationships, my work, my resources, my health, my thinking, my boundaries and the ways I respond when life does not behave according to the itinerary I prepared for it.

And I think this is where I have misunderstood salvation and transformation.

Jesus saves me completely.

But salvation does not mean every pattern I developed before Him disappears immediately.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

There is a new birth.

A new heart.

A new identity.

But Romans 12:2 still tells me:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Which means I can have a new heart and still be operating with some very old thought patterns.

And whew.

A new heart with an old mind can create some interesting combinations.

Saved but suspicious.

Redeemed but reactive.

Loved but defensive.

Called but insecure.

Anointed but exhausted because I still think everything depends on me.

Forgiven but carrying offenses like they are emotional Stanley cups.

New heart.

Old mind.

And this is where repentance becomes so much bigger than feeling bad.

Repentance is not me crying because I did something wrong.

Repentance is changing my mind in a way that changes my direction.

Because remorse says, “I hate that I did that.”

Repentance says, “I cannot keep thinking this way.”

And I have had to confront the uncomfortable reality that sometimes I have wanted God to change my behavior without allowing Him to challenge the thinking producing the behavior.

But if the root stays the same, eventually the fruit grows back.

I can trim the branches all day.

I can make myself look polished.

I can learn Christian language.

I can quote Scripture.

I can write beautiful things about growth.

I can even recognize my patterns.

But recognition is not transformation.

Knowing why I do something does not give me permission to keep doing it.

At some point the roots have to be addressed.

Because the enemy would be perfectly satisfied with me being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Busy.

Productive.

Gifted.

Helpful.

Serving.

Writing.

Working.

Encouraging.

Pouring.

But shallow.

Because depth is where stability comes from.

And this is where the widow’s story becomes even more interesting.

Elisha tells her to collect empty jars.

Not a few.

Then she shuts the door.

There is something beautiful about the miracle happening privately.

No audience.

No applause.

No announcement.

Just obedience, empty vessels and oil.

And perhaps some of the most important work God is doing in me right now is not supposed to be performed publicly.

Some things need a closed door.

Some things need quiet.

Some things need repetition.

Some things need me to stop explaining what God is doing and actually let Him do it.

The oil keeps flowing until there are no more vessels.

Then it stops.

The limitation was never the oil.

It was the capacity available to receive it.

That one bothered me.

Because I have spent plenty of time asking God for more while simultaneously refusing to make room for more.

More responsibility requires capacity.

More influence requires capacity.

More relationships require capacity.

More resources require capacity.

More opportunity requires capacity.

I cannot ask God to enlarge my life while refusing to enlarge the systems required to steward it.

That is how things collapse.

And this is where I have had to confront something else:

I sometimes treat necessities like accessories.

Rest.

Communication.

Boundaries.

Relationships.

Stewardship.

Health.

Time with God that is not attached to producing something.

Those are not cute little add ons to my life.

They are structural.

And anything structural can survive being ignored for a while.

Until weight gets put on it.

Then suddenly I am standing in the rubble asking God what happened when the answer is:

“Baby… that beam has been cracking for six months.”

Respectfully.

Because character matters tremendously.

But character is not the only thing that matters.

The widow’s husband was described as a man who revered the Lord.

A good man died and left a financial crisis behind.

That does not diminish his character.

It reveals something about stewardship.

Good intentions do not automatically create good systems.

Loving God does not exempt me from learning how to manage what He gives me.

And that hits me because I am naturally drawn to the spiritual side of things.

Pray about it.

Seek God.

Check my heart.

Study Scripture.

All necessary.

But I cannot pray my way out of responsibilities God expects me to steward.

Sometimes the spiritual answer is a budget.

Sometimes it is a conversation.

Sometimes it is a boundary.

Sometimes it is asking for help.

Sometimes it is resting.

Sometimes it is making the phone call.

Sometimes it is creating the process.

Sometimes it is admitting, “The way I have been doing this is not working.”

The widow went to Elisha as an intercessor.

She left as part of the answer.

Because after the oil multiplied, Elisha told her:

“Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

Sell it.

There was value in what she possessed, but the value had to be activated.

And that makes me ask myself a question I do not particularly enjoy:

What am I sitting on?

What has God given me that I keep calling insignificant because I have not learned how to steward it yet?

What gift have I been praying over that requires movement?

What relationship requires attention?

What opportunity requires structure?

What area of my life keeps “mysteriously” falling apart because I keep treating a necessity like an accessory?

And what am I sowing?

Because I eat daily bread because somebody sowed something.

Somebody planted wheat.

Somebody harvested it.

Somebody processed it.

Somebody transported it.

Somebody stocked it.

Somebody worked so I could eat.

Everything I benefit from came through somebody’s stewardship.

Which means I have to ask what my life is producing that somebody else can eventually live from.

That brings me back to the widow’s sons.

The threat was generational.

Her debt was about to become their bondage.

And suddenly renewing my mind feels much more serious.

Because the patterns I refuse to confront do not necessarily stop with me.

If my mind does not get renewed, somebody else may inherit the consequences of what I refused to change.

That does not mean perfection.

It means responsibility.

I cannot control everything that was handed to me.

But I am responsible for what I hand forward.

And maybe that is the part of The Princess and the Frog that hits differently now.

Tiana believed in working hard.

And baby, she WORKED.

Double shifts. Saving every penny. Eyes on the restaurant.

Her father had taught her the value of hard work, but he had also taught her something she almost forgot:

What mattered was not only getting what she wanted.

It was having people to share it with.

That is the lesson I keep bumping into too.

Achievement without relationship is still poverty somewhere.

Success while emotionally exhausted is not abundance.

Knowing God while refusing to know myself leaves blind spots.

Working hard while neglecting the things holding my life together is not stewardship.

And being gifted does not excuse me from being grounded.

I cannot spend my entire life kissing frogs hoping one of them turns into the answer when God is asking me:

“What do you already have in your house?”

Maybe I have been waiting for magic when God has been offering multiplication.

Maybe I have been asking for more oil when I need more vessels.

Maybe I have been asking God to remove pressure that is exposing weak structures.

Maybe I have been calling myself stuck when I am actually being invited into transformation.

And maybe the miracle is not simply that God gives me more.

Maybe the miracle is that He teaches me how to steward what was already there.

I am still learning.

Still renewing.

Still discovering old thinking hiding inside a new heart.

Still finding areas where my faith is strong but my systems are questionable.

Still realizing that loving God does not automatically make me good at relationships, communication, rest, money, boundaries or asking for help.

But I am also learning not to despise what is in the house.

Even my deficiencies tell me something.

They show me where reinforcement is needed.

They show me where God is growing me.

They show me where I need deeper roots.

They show me which “accessories” were actually structural beams all along.

So perhaps my prayer right now is not simply:

“God, give me more.”

It is:

“God, renew my mind enough to recognize what You already gave me. Give me the wisdom to steward it, the humility to confront what is weak, the discipline to build what is missing & the courage to pour when You tell me to pour.”

Because the oil was already in the house.

The question was whether she could recognize its value.

And apparently, somewhere between Tiana’s beignets, a widow’s jar of oil & my own tendency to ask God for a breakthrough while overlooking the ingredients sitting on the counter, I am learning something:

I do not always need another blessing.

Sometimes I need a renewed mind capable of stewarding the one I already have.

And if God is asking me what is in my house?

For once, I do not want to answer, “Nothing.”

There is oil here.

Now I need to learn how to pour it.