Windows in Heaven

God’s ability to bless us is unlimited. Our ability to receive those blessings is often the limiting factor.

As Israel, Judah, and Edom prepared for battle against Moab, the kings of the three countries consulted with the prophet Elisha what they should do. He gave them an unusual set of instructions: dig ditches throughout the valley. God will fill those ditches with water. Your men and animals will have plenty to drink, and you will win the battle. They followed his instructions, and the ditches filled with water proved to be the decisive factor in their victory (2 Kings 3).

Shortly after, Elisha performed a similar miracle on a much smaller scale. A widow who was in debt and was in danger of losing her two sons to her creditor begged him for help. All she had left was a pot of oil. He instructed her to bring as many vessels as she could into her home — anything that would hold oil. He then told her to fill all of the vessels from the pot, sell the oil, and pay her debt. She borrowed vessels from her neighbors and filled every one with oil. As Elisha had promised, the oil filled them all. After filling the last one, she asked her sons for another. They replied, “There is not a vessel more.” That was the end of the miracle. The oil continued to multiply until she ran out of vessels to hold it. But she had sufficient to pay her debt (2 Kings 4:1-7).

The kings and the widow were willing to act on Elisha’s instructions. Those instructions didn’t create the miracle; they prepared the recipients to receive the blessing. On other occasions, Elisha encountered skeptics, who were not inclined to believe his promises. When the city of Samaria was under siege, provisions became scarce, and everything became prohibitively expensive (2 Kings 6:24-25). Elisha prophesied to the king that the following day, everything would become cheap: “To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria” (2 Kings 7:1). One of the king’s servants mocked him, asking, “Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?” (2 Kings 7:2).

Are there windows in heaven? Centuries later, the prophet Malachi would use that metaphor to testify of God’s abundant goodness. When Jesus visited the Americas, He quoted Malachi’s promise, asking the people to write it:

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

3 Nephi 24:10; compare Malachi 3:10

Windows in heaven turned out to be an apt metaphor for God’s unlimited grace. He will pour out blessings, but will we receive them? Will we dig the ditches? Will we gather the vessels? These small acts of obedience don’t create the miracle, but they create “room to receive it.”

Today I will follow God’s instructions, remembering that my obedience may simply increase my capacity to receive His abundant blessings.