Mensa Otabil - Gather New Vessels (11/03/2025)
This is day number 23 of our 40 days of power. We’re making progress. This week, we are talking about building capacity. 2 Kings chap 4:3: «Then he said, 'Go borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors-empty vessels; do not gather just a few.'»
A widow approached Elisha the prophet for help. The widow’s husband had been a prophet, and now he was dead. The creditor was coming to take her two children into servitude, into slavery. So she goes to her husband’s boss, the prophet Elisha, and says, «Sir, I need help.» Elisha says to her, «What do you have in your house?» There’s a big lesson there. She’s looking for help from Elisha, and Elisha says, «What do you have?» What we learn here is that the solution she is looking for is within her own power, within her own capacity. Elisha is not going to conjure something to come into existence; Elisha is going to use what she has to create the miracle. And so Elisha says to her, «Go out there, go and borrow vessels from all your neighbors-empty vessels; don’t borrow a few. Gather the vessels, go into your room, shut the door, take your jar of oil, which is very tiny, and pour into those vessels.»
And so the woman goes and does what the prophet says. She takes the jar of oil and pours into those vessels, and the vessels get fuller and fuller and fuller. When there are no more vessels, the oil ceases. There are important lessons to learn here, because Elisha taught the woman how to take the little she has and make it into a lot. The first lesson we learn from this woman’s encounter with the prophet is that we need to build capacity for what God gives us. The Lord expects us to contain whatever He gives us. You know, many times we pray, «God, bless me. God, increase me. God, bless me.» Where are you going to put the blessing? If God gives you an opportunity, what are you going to do with it? For example, if God opens an opportunity for me to go and play in the English Premier League, I would be useless because I wouldn’t be able to play. I don’t have the capacity for the opportunity.
So what Elisha is teaching the woman is that if you’re going to receive a miracle, you must have the capacity to contain it, to make use of it. Go and get a container, and that’s the first thing we learn. Secondly, he says to her, «What you don’t have, go and borrow from others.» The lesson there is that if you don’t know it, learn from someone else. If you don’t have the ability, borrow someone’s ability. Get people to help you. Go and learn, go and apprentice, go and work under somebody who can help you to develop a bigger capacity than what you have. Many times we want to do it all by ourselves, but in this miracle, the woman couldn’t do it all by herself; she had to borrow capacity from others.
The third thing is that the only things you can keep in your life are the things you can contain. If you can’t contain it, it’ll be wasted. Interestingly, in this woman’s miracle, the oil ceased flowing when there were no more vessels. This is a very important lesson: Whatever we call the blessing of God, the grace of God will stop flowing in our lives when we don’t make good use of it, when we don’t create a container for it, when we don’t create the ability to harness it and use it well. That’s why it’s very possible for you to be so blessed and so poor at the same time, because you have something, but you don’t have the capacity to use it well. May the Lord help us to increase our capacity so His blessing can be contained in our lives.
Let’s pray. Pray, say with me, «Heavenly Father, help me to contain the blessings You pour into my life. Show me how to increase my capacity. In Jesus' name, amen.»