Neither Shall the Cruse of Oil Fail

When Elijah visited the widow of Zarapeth during the time of the famine, he asked her for food and bread.  She said, “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”  But Elijah promised her that if she would have the faith to feed him she would live: “For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.”  She did as directed and the promise was not filled: “And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah” (1 Kings 17:10-16).  I realized today as I thought about this story that the promise of her cruse of oil not failing is symbolic of the Savior and His infinite power.  He is the Anointed One, as prophesied by Isaiah and quoted by Him in the synagogue of Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).  To be anointed physically is to have oil placed on one’s head, and He was anointed to preach the gospel and bind up wounds and deliver the captives and bring sight to the blind.  In short, He was anointed to save the Father’s children, and His cruse of oil will not fail.  We need not be concerned that He will not have the means or power to save and help us—his supply of spiritual oil will never run out.    

               Perhaps we might also see this cruse of oil as symbolic of the time that we have.  One of the greatest challenges for many of us in our day is to find the time to do everything that is required of us.  In our fast paced age the demands can be overwhelming.  We may feel, like this woman did about her oil, that we are running out of time, that we don’t have enough to survive.  And then the Lord comes to us and requests first that we give of our time to Him, that even though we barely have enough for ourselves we first give our time to serve God.  If we do that, then I believe we can have this same promise from Him: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail”—if we first use our time to serve Him, we will find the time we need to do everything else that is really necessary.  The Savior put it this way to His disciples, “But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Luke 12:31). Like it was for that widow in the days of Elijah, it can be very difficult for us to hand over what feels like the last little bit of our time to serve the Lord or read scriptures or worship in the temple or serve in our callings.  But our cruse of time and ability will not fail us if we truly seek to give over to Him all that He requires.  President Benson put it this way: “When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.”