Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to faithhopegodlove@aol.com In Christ, Mark
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"
"Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him!"
The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"
Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth."
1 Kings 17:17-24
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
As we go through life, we find out one thing clearly about faith and the way we exercise it.
It’s much easier when things are going well.
Think about it. We see it happen all the time. As long as a person’s life is trouble-free, then God is awesome and good and right. But let a little challenge enter in…let the sunny days turn cloudy, stormy and rainy…let good times turn bad and something happens to us. We stop believing and trusting in the same God who was there for us when things were going well…the God who never changed, unlike our circumstances.
Maybe you can relate. I know I can.
So we can maybe see a little bit of ourselves in the widow in 1st Kings, Chapter 17. You see things had been looking rather bad for her and her son before Elijah came into their lives. You’ll recall that a drought had struck the land and caused a great famine. The woman was down to her last bit of flour and oil…enough to make one more meal for them before they would perish from starvation.
And in the midst of this hardship, we saw where God delivered.
For when Elijah asked the woman to bring him a piece of bread and the woman lamented on having so little, Elijah assured her that the Lord would provide saying:
“For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.' " (1 Kings 17:14)
And so the woman complied with Elijah’s wishes and experienced the bounty of God’s blessing as her supply of flour indeed did not run out nor did her oil. God’s word had come alive in truth for her. Surely she would never doubt Him again…would she?
Not as long as everything continued to go well as we will see.
For some time after God had provided her, her son, and Elijah with enough provision to eat while others struggled to find food to eat, we read where the widow’s son became ill with her condition growing “worse and worse” until he “finally stopped breathing”. So did the woman sustain faith in the midst of her tragedy?
Not exactly.
For scripture tells us she turns on Elijah questioning him by saying, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"
Wow. This man Elijah had done nothing but showed up to save the woman and her son from starvation. Didn’t he deserve her praise and thanks? In fact, we didn’t read any place in this passage where she gave thanks to anyone for the blessing she had received. No thanks to God…no thanks to Elijah.
But as things went bad for the widow, she doesn’t hesitate to rain down curses on Elijah…and indirectly on God, hinting that Elijah was a harbinger of death sent to punish her for her sinfulness.
How quickly her faith went away in the midst of hardship. The widow felt God had brought down judgment upon her. She never saw it as God possibly testing her faith…a test that she was failing badly.
In the midst of this turn of events, we find Elijah not getting into a verbal confrontation with his accuser but instead taking the lifeless son from the widow and moving him to his upper room where he “laid him on his bed”. Then, with the boy on the bed, we hear Elijah make his own plea, crying out the Lord and saying:
"O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?"
It was a very valid question. Maybe it was the Lord’s will for the son to pass. After all, the son really belonged to God, not the widow. If it was time for the Lord to call the son home, then it was time. No one had a right to argue that. From a human perspective, the loss was tragic. No doubt about that. But from a divine perspective, nothing God does is ill timed. And so no one has any right to question Him. No one. Not even a trusted prophet.
Back to the scripture where we find Elijah move from questioning to action, stretching “himself out on the boy three times” and crying out, "O Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him!"
It’s at this juncture that the ball is still in the Lord’s court. He didn’t have to bring the son back to life. But then again, the Lord can do whatever He wants to do. We need only trust His infinite wisdom. And in this case, God knew that resurrecting the son would have a positive impact on both Elijah and the woman.
So when “the Lord heard Elijah's cry”, we read where “the boy's life returned to him and he lived”. Immediately, “Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house” where “he gave him to his mother” and said, "Look, your son is alive!"
And then…and only then…do we find the widow express her gratitude…to Elijah and the Lord…as she said, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth." Too bad it took a death and resurrection to open her eyes to this.
I mean wouldn’t a sudden endless supply of flour and oil as predicted by a prophet cause a person to know that the prophet was a man of God who spoke words of truth from Him? I know it would bring me to praise and thanksgiving.
So what is it in your life that you’re taking for granted? In what way is God blessing you that you are failing to give Him praise and thanks for? What’s it going to take for the Lord to get your attention? Will it take a tragedy? And if it will, how will you respond? Will it be by cursing the same God who blessed you while not receiving gratitude? And what will it take for you to finally believe God as the God of truth and goodness and provision and wisdom in your life? Is it going to take a miracle to open your eyes?
In closing, the widow has a lot in common with a future disciple of Jesus. You might remember him…his name was Thomas…Thomas who doubted. Maybe you can relate to him like you can relate to the widow. This is because we’re too often like Thomas as well.
Remember that Thomas refused to believe that a resurrected Jesus had actually appeared to his fellow disciples saying, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." (John 20:25) And when Jesus appeared to Thomas, he told him to, "Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side.” (John 20:27) And as Thomas proclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”, Jesus finishes the dialogue by saying, “"Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)
Indeed, blessed are those who have not yet seen and yet have believed…all because they stand on the foundation of faith of which Hebrews will ever remind us is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)
How do we sustain faith in difficult times? We need to be sure of what we hope for…and that is that we serve a Lord who can always be trusted…a Lord who always operates in perfect righteousness…a Lord who never needs questioned…only praised, now and forever. Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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