But the boy's mother said, "As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won't go home unless you go with me." So Elisha returned with her. 2 Kings 4:30
I have a confession today. I know and believe God is able to demonstrate His power and work in the lives of people. I know and believe that He is willing to demonstrate His power in people's lives. Sometimes, I'm not sure He's willing and able to do it for me. In other words, sometimes I wonder if I can trust Him and His power in my own life. Maybe you can relate. If this is you, be encouraged today because, in our study of 2 Kings 4:25-37, we are going to discover that not only is God willing and able, He is willing and able to work in your own life today.
In 2 Kings 4:8, we read about a couple who befriended Elisha, fed him, and built a room on top of their roof for him to stay whenever he visited their town. In response to their kindness, Elisha wanted to do something kind for them. Elisha decided that since they had no children, he would ask God to repay their kindness by giving them a son. Elisha told this couple that at that time, one year from then, they would be holding their son. Immediately this woman responded by saying, "O man of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that" (verse 16). She was afraid that she was going to be let down. She believed in God and certainly knew His power, but she was not sure He would work in her own life. Despite her statement, she and her husband, although he was older, had a son. God proved Himself able and willing to demonstrate His power by providing her and her husband a son.
The story does not end there. You see, as their son was older, he became very sick one day and died. Devastated, this woman finds Elisha. She was not without hope, however. Before she went to Elisha, she told her husband, "It will be alright" (verse 23). In the midst of her sorrow, she knew everything was going to be okay because God was in control and able and willing to demonstrate His power in her life. When she found Elisha, she fell down to the ground and said, "Did I ask you for a son, my lord? And didn't I say, 'Don't deceive me and get my hopes up?" Elisha responded by instructing his servant go with this woman to her son, but she said to Elisha, "As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won't go home unless you go with me" (verse 40). She wanted God's prophet to go directly with her because she believed that God was able and willing to work through him. As a result of this woman's persistence and faith, Elisha went with her, laid his hands on the boy, and he was healed. God proved Himself willing and able to work in the life of this woman and in her family's life.
When you think about your own life, do you believe that God is willing and able to work in your life? Do you hear and marvel over stories of God working in miraculous ways in other peoples' lives, but believe that God would never work like that in your life? My friend, God is currently working in your life, and He will not stop working. Will you believe Him to do big things in your own life?
If you are following along with our devotions this week, you know that we have been challenged to take a notecard and write the words, "God is able" and "God is willing" on it. If you have that notecard, get it now. If you don't have the notecard, make one now. Next, add the words, "I can trust Him." Then, on the other side of the card, write down one way that God has already shown up in your life just this week. Be sure to look at this card often throughout the day as a reminder that you, yes, you can trust God with your life.
One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. 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 arms!”
“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.
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 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 Gehazi, “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’?”
Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready to travel; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”
But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.
Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”
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 Elisha 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.
