Leadership Lessons
from the Widow with the Pot of Oil
Eturuvie Erebor
A
widow cried to Elisha because her
sons were about to be taken away
by the creditors as she was unable
to pay her debts. Elisha asked her a simple
question, “What do you have in your house?”
This question could also mean, what is on your
inside or what gifts do you possess that you
can trade? The widow was very quick to say,
“Nothing” and as an afterthought, she added,
“Except a jar of oil.” She obviously did not see
the jar of oil as a solution to her problem, but it
became the instrument God used to bail her out
of trouble. So, all the time, the answer to her
problem was inside her house and staring her
in the face. However, she failed to recognise it
for what it was and was looking outside to have
her needs met. Many of us are like this widow;
when a crisis shows up, we look outside first
for the solution but the truth is long before the
crisis showed up, the solution was deposited on
our inside by God.
The Leadership Lessons from the Widow with the Pot of Oil Are;
1
She had something in her house. And you
have something in your house. What do you have
in your house? There is something inside you; God
has placed a gift on your inside that you can trade
with to ensure your departure from lack. Each one
of us is created in the image of God, and if God is
a creator, then it follows that we are also creators;
creators of every good thing that we desire and
creators of solutions to every problem we encounter.
Whether we know it or not and whether we choose
to believe it or not, the answer to every problem
we face in life is on our inside. God has deposited
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DOZ Magazine September 2017
a gift on the inside of every one of us, and that gift
has the potential to create wealth for us, and by so
doing, it terminates our financial struggles. It will
pay your debts and provide enough to sustain you.
2
Until she looked inwards, her struggle
continued. The solution to our problems is always
within us; there is something in our house that will
end our crisis. Our help is always inside and not
outside.
3
Talking about her problems did not take