Launch Out of Poverty into Wealth and Enterprise

In 2 Kings 4, a widow comes to the prophet Elisha in desperation. Her husband, one of the sons of the prophets, has died, and the creditor is coming to take her two sons as slaves to pay off the family debt. Elisha asks a striking question: 'What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?' She answers, 'Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.' From that jar, God launches an entire enterprise. It is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of how the Lord moves a person from poverty into provision.

You can fear God and still be broke

Start with the husband. He was a prophet; that was his calling. He was a worshiper of God who feared the Lord. He came to Bible study, even led it. He preached. He gave his tithes and offerings. He stayed away from sin. And yet he was very, very poor, and so deep in debt that when he died the creditors came after his estate, and then after his children.

Here is the sobering lesson: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but it is not the end of it. God has promised that those who fear him will not lack any good thing, and that he will supply all their needs. But too often we never go on to study how God actually does this. God is not a magician. He is a miracle worker, yes, but he never promised to always perform a miracle for us. Rather he promised to bless us, which means he will work through natural laws to bring supernatural results.

So consider this honestly. Many believers have never read a single book on how money works, on stocks or interest or sales or profit and loss or risk. There is an old joke that if you want to hide something from certain people, put it in a book, because they will never open it. We give every kind of excuse for not reading. But nothing just happens; things are made to happen. Even Scripture speaks of the 'working' of miracles, which means miracles have to be worked. Ecclesiastes 10:10 says if the axe is blunt and you do not sharpen it, you must use more strength, but wisdom brings success. You can be a genuine prophet and still be broke, simply because you never equipped yourself with knowledge.

What you are leaving behind

There is a second lesson here, and it concerns our children. Some years ago I ran into a former schoolmate. He was now running a company worth millions, providing services to the oil and gas industry, looking to acquire a drilling rig and boats. He and I left school together, and I asked myself how the gap had grown so wide.

The answer was his father. A generation earlier, while most of our parents took salaried jobs at big companies, this man's father chose to start a small business chasing contracts from those same companies. He left the secure paycheck and slowly, steadily built something that his son now manages and expands with modern training and technology. His father was not even what most of us would call born again. Yet he left his children a launching pad.

Compare that with the prophet in our story. Rather than leave a business or wealth for his children to manage, he left them debt, and they were starting life at less than nothing. The other man's children were starting at a great advantage, and their children will start higher still. So two questions press on us. First, the fear of the Lord is a beginning, but have you equipped yourself with the information that would let you seize opportunity? Second, what are you leaving behind for your children and your children's children — a launching pad, or a load of debt?

The lie that says you have nothing

Now watch how the breakthrough begins. Elisha asks, what do you have in the house? The woman's first instinct is to say, 'Your servant has nothing.' That very mindset is what had killed the prophet — the conviction that you have nothing.

So many of us carry that same lie. If only I had a certain amount of money. I have no head for business. I am not good at selling. I have no ideas. Call it the disease of excuse-making. The one who did not attend school says, I have nothing, because I never went. The one who finished school says, I have nothing, because I did not go to college. The one with a college degree says, I have nothing, because I have no graduate degree. The one with the graduate degree says, I have nothing, because I wasted all those years earning it. The moment you agree with the world that you have nothing, you fall asleep to all the potential around you. Proverbs 20:13 warns, 'Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.'

That was the difference between the prophet and his wife. He had died believing he had nothing. She refused. When she made up her mind that failure was not an option, that her children being taken was not an option, her eyes opened. She saw that 'nothing' was actually a small jar of oil. And that was the beginning of the end of her poverty.

Open your eyes to what you already have

Let me help you open your eyes, because you have more than you think. Do you know how many hours are in your week? There are 168. If you work a regular job, that takes about 40 hours. Add ten hours of commuting, and roughly 50 hours of sleep, and about 21 hours for leisure and chores. Add it all up and you have used around 121 hours. That leaves 47 hours a week unaccounted for. Forty-seven hours is enough time for an entire second job. And yet we say, I have nothing in the house.

But no one ever became wealthy simply by working for someone else. So if you can hold a job that covers your bills for those first 50 hours, what should you do with the other 47? Invest them. Pour them into a venture, into an enterprise. The woman said she had nothing but a pot of oil; you may have nothing but the ability to bake, to style hair, to write, to design web pages, to teach, to cook, to nurse, to care. That skill is your jar of oil.

Go outside and find the empty vessels

Elisha's instruction was specific: 'Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.' First find empty vessels — that is, find who needs what you have. If you have oil, find the vessels that need oil. If you have a skill, go out and find the people who need that skill.

Going outside means making flyers and business cards. It means letting people know what you do. You do not sit in your house and expect the customers to appear; you hang out your shingle. As Zig Ziglar put it, you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. So do not waste those 47 hours complaining that someone did not greet you, or nursing quarrels, or chasing recognition. Go outside and find the empty vessels.

Then Elisha said, 'Go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour.' The pouring was done together. Notice that. One person has 47 spare hours a week; two people have 94; three have 141. If the widow had tried this alone, she would have been limited. Even with her sons helping, it was the number of vessels they gathered that set the limit on the oil. Form partnerships. As John Maxwell says, one is too small a number to accomplish anything of significance. Ecclesiastes agrees: two are better than one, for they have a good reward for their labor. Imagine a group of nurses, or a group of brothers, pooling their time and money to build a proper business rather than each chasing a little extra pay alone. When many people know what you do, and many hands do the pouring, the supply multiplies.

Do it for the ones coming after you

Even if you will not do this for yourself, do it for your children. Proverbs 13:22 says, 'A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous.' It will not be your portion to pass on debt and loans that weigh your family down for years.

And remember why God wants to bless you at all. It is not so you can drive the newest car or live in the biggest house or be the loudest voice in the room. It is so that, like Abraham, you can command your children after you in the way of the Lord. Of Abraham, God said, 'I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord' (Genesis 18:19), so that the Lord could bring to pass all he had promised. That is the true reason to launch out — so that generations after you will remember that it was because of Jesus, and because of his grace, that all of it happened.