What Is Left At The End Of The Month

You have counted it more than once today.

Not deliberately. You opened the cupboard for something else and your eyes did the arithmetic on their own, the way they have learned to at this point in the month, and then you closed it again.

There is rice. There is something in a can. There is most of a bag of pasta and a piece of an onion wrapped in plastic, and there is the thing at the back that has been there since before this got tight.

Six days to go.

And the particular weight of that is not hunger. It is the standing in front of it, doing the sums, with somebody small in the next room who will ask what is for dinner at about half past five.

So let me say two things plainly before anything else, and the second one matters more than the first.

The first is that nobody here is going to suggest you buy anything. Not a cheap version, not an item to stretch it further. What is in that cupboard is what this article works with.

And the second: nothing in this article connects what is on that shelf to where you stand with God. Not as a test, not as a lesson, not as a season you are being taught something in. An empty shelf is an empty shelf. It is not a report on anybody, and anybody who has implied otherwise to you was wrong.

A handful of meal in a barrel

There is a moment in First Kings where a woman says exactly what is left, out loud, with no softening.

And 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. (1 Kings 17:12, King James Version)

An handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse.

She names the inventory. Not approximately. Precisely, item by item, the way a person does who has been counting it. And nobody in the text tells her not to say it, and nobody suggests she is being faithless for knowing the number.

That accounting you did this morning without meaning to is in Scripture, said by a woman who is treated with nothing but respect.

You are doing what she did rather than something that needs excusing, and knowing exactly what is on a shelf has never once been a failure of trust. First Kings 17:12 has a woman state her inventory plainly and receive no correction for it, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody who closed a cupboard again this morning.

And look at the size of what she has.

A handful. Not a store, not a reserve, not enough for the two of them for a week. A handful, and a little oil, and the honest expectation that it runs out.

The text does not make her feel foolish for the size of it, and it does not make the handful into a symbol. It stays exactly what it is, which is a handful of food in a difficult month.

You have a real amount in a real cupboard and not a symbol of anything, and a shelf at the end of a month has never once been a message about your standing with God. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody doing arithmetic she never asked to learn, and First Kings 17:12 leaves a handful as a handful and treats the woman with respect.

Counting is not the same as cooking

Here is the practical half, and it is one correction. The counting and the cooking have got tangled, and pulling them apart is most of what will change tonight.

Counting is what happens when the cupboard is open. It measures the six days. It is useful for about nine seconds and then it starts doing something else, which is running the same sum again and again without producing a new answer.

Cooking is what happens with one pan and a burner and twenty minutes. It does not solve the six days. It solves tonight.

And those two have become one activity in that kitchen, which is why opening the cupboard is heavy and why it keeps getting closed again.

You were running a sum rather than making a dinner, and counting what is left has never once been the same act as cooking some of it. First Kings 17:12 has a woman say exactly what she has and then move, and the Holy Spirit is the one with somebody standing in front of an open door doing arithmetic.

And here is what actually goes in the pan, because this is the half that matters.

Rice and an egg is a meal. Pasta with a bit of the onion and whatever fat is in that kitchen is a meal. The tin, warmed, on rice, is a meal. None of those need anything you do not have and none of them need a second thing to be complete.

The child in the next room is not assessing the plate. The child wants dinner and a person who is not visibly worried, and one of those two is in your gift tonight.

You have several real meals on that shelf right now, and a short cupboard has never once been the same thing as an empty one. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with somebody reaching past the sum to the rice, and First Kings 17:12 names a handful and a little oil without pretending either is more.

What tonight is, out of that cupboard

So here is the assignment. Cook one thing tonight out of what is actually in that cupboard, and sit down to eat it.

Tonight. One thing. One pan. Rice with an egg on it, or pasta with the onion, or the tin warmed through onto rice. Do not go out and get anything, and do not save the best of it for a worse day, because a worse day is the thing the saving is feeding.

It may not be much. That is fine and it is expected, and it is information about a month rather than about you, and it is a dinner.

You are making one dinner rather than solving six days, and a meal built out of what is left has never once been a lesser meal than a planned one. First Kings 17:12 has a woman name a handful and be taken entirely seriously, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that stove with somebody cooking near the end of a month.

Then the second half, and it is the one that does the work. Lay a place and sit down with whoever is in that house. At the table, on plates, for the length of the meal. Not standing at the counter, not eating the remainder of theirs after they leave. Standing and finishing what is left over is how a woman disappears out of her own dinner, and tonight she is going to sit at it.

You are sitting down to it rather than finishing what somebody else left, and a small meal at a laid table has never once fed a family less. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with the plates and the rice, and First Kings 17:12 respects a woman with almost nothing and never once shames her for it.