The Nature of Elijah: Why Faith Matters in Fundraising for Missions

Oct 25, 2023

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.


James 5:17-18

I became Global Frontier Missions’ Director of Partner Development in October 2020. For the last three years, I’ve spent half my time raising money for GFM as an organization, and the other half of my time coaching our new staff through their personal support-raising. As a new fundraiser and coach in the thick of a pandemic, I heard one refrain from nearly everyone I talked to:

 

“COVID is a terrible time to raise money.”

 

In time, we would learn that COVID was, in fact, an excellent time to raise money. Generosity was up, the stock market was soaring, and awareness of world needs was higher than it had been in a long time. New donors poured in. Existing donors increased their giving. Global Frontier Missions would go on to have its most successful fundraising year since its founding.

 

But I didn’t know that then. Instead, I had to wrestle with the ethics of asking for money during a time when some people thought fundraising was a lost cause and others considered it downright rude. I imagine a valid argument could be made—some times in history are objectively better for support-raising than others. But here’s what I know for sure:

 

There is no worse time to ask for money than during a drought that you prayed for. 

 

And so the story of Elijah and the widow became a sort of baseline for me—a reference point that told me over and over: “If God could do it then, He most certainly can do it now.”


The story starts where so many of Elijah’s stories do—in the hiding place of discouragement between miraculous showdowns. This time, Elijah had confronted King Ahab and commanded a drought that would last years. We find Elijah by the brook of Cherith, eating bread and meat brought to him by ravens. Here, God shows him that—even if the kings of the earth won’t obey His commands—at least the unclean animals will.

 

But slowly, the brook dries up. How scary it must have been for Elijah to watch his water source become a trickle, knowing rain wouldn’t come. Knowing the rain wouldn’t come because of his prayers.

 

And slowly, in Zarephath, a widow’s oil dried up, too. How scary it must have been for her to watch it dwindle, to envision a hundred scenes of her son’s death after she had already lost her husband.

 

How scary it must have been for Elijah to leave his familiar means of provision, find a widow who was so poor she didn’t even have firewood, and ask her for her last meal.

 

And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”


As someone who has coached many people through asking for money, I can’t help but hear the fear in Elijah’s question. Haven’t we all done it before?—started out trying to be bold and only ended up getting out with half the question? Haven’t we all meant to ask for a meal and only gotten out with a request for a little water instead? Haven’t we all called out after the person we’re asking, working up our boldness for the real request?

 

But no matter how badly we’ve fumbled our asks, none of us has ever been in a support meeting with someone who was one meal away from starvation. Because not only was Elijah asking for provision during the worst possible time—he was asking the worst possible person.

 

Or maybe he was asking the best possible person. Because, for some wild reason, this starving Canaanite widow believed God’s promise that He would bless her household. (Is it any wonder that the New Testament Canaanite woman had the same audacious faith?) With her little offering of flour and oil, she embodies the life of Jesus. She loses her life to gain it. The last become first. The hungry and thirsty are satisfied. The poor receive the kingdom of heaven. The widow and her household eat for many days.

 

But her household couldn’t live by bread alone, so God called her into even deeper faith. 


By now, this widow had witnessed the supernatural. Now she knew she was seen by God. Now she knew what else God had seen. Now her secret sins lay bare in the light of His gaze, and she can’t escape her guilt.


We know because it’s the first thing out of her mouth when her son dies. She doesn’t react with cries for help or questions about why. Whatever this sin of her past was, it was the first thing to bubble up when her life stopped making sense. It  must have been a well-kept secret, because even Elijah the Prophet seems caught off guard. Even he asks God “why?”.


It’s a dangerous game–to ask why God lets tragedy happen. To ask why, after God promised to save her son’s life, this widow was left weeping over his dead body. Exposed in her sin. Put to shame by the God she trusted. But as I ponder the mystery of her son’s death, one question is loudest in my mind: If the death of this widow’s son showed her the seriousness of her sin, what did his resurrection show her? What did she learn about forgiveness when she witnessed the Bible’s first resurrection?


She saw what had never been seen before. She saw what the rest of the world would wait millennia to see. She foreshadowed another widow’s Son who turned His last meal into a feast for His friends. Another Son who showed the world its sin. Another Son whose resurrection would be told among the most distant peoples. 


This widow, with her little act of obedience–this widow who said “yes” to Elijah’s fumbled ask–she was the first to see death lose its sting.

As I write this post, I’m preparing to enter a season of serious support-raising, with a budget that’s double what I’ve raised before. And as I write this, Congress is voting on a debt ceiling deal while an economic crisis hangs in the balance. I don’t know which way it will go.


This is what I do know: I’m glad I didn’t listen three years ago when people told me it was a bad time for fundraising. I’m glad Elijah didn’t listen to his own doubt when God told him to ask a starving widow. I’m glad the Canaanite widow’s God still turns generosity into resurrection. 

 

Come economic collapse or booming stock markets—come dried up brooks or meals brought by ravens—I hope I’ll stand with the Church as we believe God for fundraising that bears the nature of Elijah.

 

Fundraising built on the fervent prayers of the righteous.

 

Fundraising where the still, small voice of God leads.

 

Fundraising where entire households are blessed. Where the desperate witness the miraculous.

 

Fundraising where the sins that have haunted us are brought into the light, and we throw our arms around forgiveness.

 

Fundraising where the forgotten become the heralds of resurrection.


Fundraising where knees bow and tongues confess, “Now I know that the word of the Lord is truth.”

 

It’s an idealistic vision, we’re tempted to think. A romanticized display of faith that worked in Elijah’s day, but won’t work in ours. Not in the era of namestorming and awkward phone calls. Not with our monthly budget goals and stammering asks. Not when it’s a rookie missionary instead of a prophet who calls down fire from heaven.

 

To that, the Bible has one resounding answer. A promise that invites us into something better than weary, heavy-laden fundraising. A promise that I hope will sustain me in a few months when my budget doubles. The unwavering promise of God to every anxious support-raiser.

 

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

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