The Lord doesn’t care what amount we give when we give, as long as its everything.
The poor widow in Mark 12 gave everything she had to live on, which wasn’t much; two copper coins. Most likely she was in the exact same situation as the widow in 1 Kings 17. Elijah was told to go to a certain woman who the Lord promised would keep him alive during one of Israel’s worst famines. Elijah goes, interupts her from gathering wood for a fire, and asks her for water and bread. Her response to the man of God was that she had no bread, just some meal in a jar. She explained that she was gathering wood for a fire so she could go home to her son, bake what little bread she had left, and die. But, out of obedience, she promises to give Elijah some first. It was all she had to live on. She baked the last remaining measure of meal and gave it away, and the Lord kept her alive through the famine by miraculously causing the meal in the jar to replenish itself.
But the widow in Mark’s gospel gave a different resource, two copper coins. We don’t even know if she lived. Jesus doesn’t say anything about it, other than the fact that she gave everything she had to live on. She may well have died a week later. If she did, she did so highly esteemed by the Son of God. Life is more than food. So long as we relate life to only the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter, we will miss the Kingdom of God, which is truth, humility, and righteousness. I’m not saying that the Lord won’t give us those things because He promises that He will. Life does include food, but it is so much more than that. There is an element of walking in faith where you absolutely must take your eyes off of your circumstances. The Kingdom of God does not run off of copper coins and jars of flour. It runs off of extravagant, obedient love and the violence of giving everything in order to get everything: Jesus.
