Today, we’re going to study a beautiful story turned tragic, then made miraculous. God has specifically asked me to share this story with you, his girls today. We will look at this story in 3 separate parts.
First, the beautiful part. 2 Kings 4: 8-17
One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. (Remember from yesterday’s devotional, Elisha is a prophet of God with a very special connection to deliver God’s messages and do God’s miraculous works.) A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat.
She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. Let’s build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”
One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and he went up to this upper room to rest. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared, Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘We appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?”
“No,” she replied, “my family takes good care of me.”
Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we do for her?”
Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”
“Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arm!”
“No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”
But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.
My friends, you simply cannot out-give God. He sees the good you do, and he responds. God responds with blessings so overwhelming good that we couldn’t even dare ask for them.
But, know this … God sees the heart of your “good works”.
Are you doing good things just to be seen? Are you hoping good things will come to you as a result? Jesus warns us about this in Matthew 6:1, “Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.” Verse 4, “Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”
This has been a a very hard lesson for me personally. If I did something good, I wanted everyone to know about it. I was intoxicated with the praise. I desperately wanted to be liked because of my good deeds. Then God asked me to shut down my public life, draw close to him, and be completely obedient in secret. I cannot tell you how good this has been for me. Maybe God is calling you to the same secretly good life of obedience where absolutely no one else will know of the goodness you do. This truly opens a door for God’s blessings on a whole other level!
This woman gave a room to Elisha not to be seen or praised, but out of pure goodness and obedience. As a result, God saw her private gifts and he rewarded her.
His reward to her was a blessing she didn’t even dare ask for. It was a gift so big she hadn’t even hoped for it. The thing her heart most wanted, but she hadn’t allowed herself to dream of … a son. A son when it was too late. A son when it was totally unlikely. And God did it for her.
She couldn’t out-give God, and neither can you. What if on the other side of your obedience and humble acts of kindness and goodness unseen by everyone else, God has a gift so perfect for you that you don’t even know to ask for it!
Now, part 2 of the story, this is the tragic part. How many of us know real life can be beautiful, and it can also be tragic? Tragedy is part of the human experience and eventually, it touches every single one of us.
2 Kings 4: 18-30:
One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters. Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!”
His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”
So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there. She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”
“Why go out today?” he asked. “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”
But she said, “It will be all right.”
So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”
As she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehzi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?'”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”
But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is.”
Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get my hopes up’?”
God showed me something tucked away in this story so many of his girls needs to hear today. This woman didn’t wait for her husband. She didn’t wait for him to pray. She didn’t wait for him to lead her family in faith. She didn’t wait for him to go with her. She sought God for herself. She sought God for her family.
For so many, we wish our husbands would rise up and be our spiritual leaders. But honey, if he won’t, then you be the one to rise up! Don’t allow his hesitation or his failure to become your hesitation or failure. Sometimes you have to go first. This woman went. She didn’t wait for her husband. He questioned her, even tried to discourage her, but she sought God anyway.
Maybe your husband won’t go to church with you, or maybe you don’t have a husband at all. Go alone. Maybe you don’t have anyone to pray with you. Pray alone. Maybe you don’t have anyone seeking God with you or for you. Seek alone.
This woman stopped and talked to absolutely no one else. She didn’t need anyone to join her. She didn’t need anyone to cry with her, pray with her, or understand her pain. She was on a mission. She was going straight to Elisha, the man of God.
Understand, because of Jesus, we no longer need a middle person to communicate with God for us. Jesus is our mediator. Because of him, we now have direct access to God. We can go directly to God … but are we? Or are we hoping someone else will do that for us?
God’s been waiting to hear from you! He’s given you access, now use it! Talk to him about this tragedy! He cares and he’s prepared to do something about it.
Now, the miraculous part of the story. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to the miraculous part of your story yet, but I assure you God has miracles aligned for you! He has not left you out of the miracles.
2 Kings 4: 32-37:
When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed. he went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again! Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!
Then Elisah summoned Gehazi. “Call the child’s mother!” he said. And when she came in, Elisha said, “Here, take your son!” She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.
This woman had to trust the man of God with her son. She wasn’t in the room. She was outside when the miracle happened. And what the Holy Spirit whispered to me reading this is, “You have to trust me and stand outside while I work my miracle.” Sometimes we want so badly to be part of the miraculous works of God that we get in the way.
Girl, get out of the way. Let God do what only God can do!
Once you’ve called God in, then trust him. Trust him to revive what needs to be revived, heal what needs to be healed, restore what needs to be restored, or take what needs to be taken. Your job is to seek God, trust God, and continue on with gratitude knowing he is working!
And that’s the whole story. Beauty, tragedy and a miracle.
With this story, I believe God is checking our hearts and intentions today. Why do you do the good things you do? Is it to be seen and liked? Then that is your only reward. Cancel the show and shut down the audience. God wants your acts of obedience to be private.
I believe God is reminding us to seek Him first and go alone if we need to. Stop wishing someone else would do it with you or for you. No, you have a connection with God, use it.
And I believe God is reminding us his miraculous works do not require our presence in the room. We seek him, then we trust him enough to work behind closed doors in ways we cannot see or control.
And for this, God’s girls say, THANK YOU, LORD – WE HEAR YOU!
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