...And Faith Responded Unusually

...Everything is all right.... - Elisha, Prophet of God, 2 Kings 4:26

I was reflecting on friends that I have been blessed with for nearly 40 years. Wow! 40 years...it doesn't seem so long ago. We knew each other at the end of high school and in college and we raised children together, worked together, prayed and played together. This thinking came on the heels of my reading about the prophet Elisha. Elisha regularly found himself traveling to and through a town called Shunem. In that town was a well-to-do couple who extended hospitality to him. As the story unfolds we discover initially they simply broke bread with him as he passed through. Later, seeing that Elisha needed accommodations and a place where he could also study, they built a room for him; a second story no less Now, each time he came through town, he had a place to stay, to eat, to rest and to study. He was so appreciative of their kindness that one day he asked the wife what he could do for her. Though not directly, later the woman explained to Elisha's servant Gehazi that the woman had a lifetime of having been barren. No children. Her husband was old and she did not feel he could provide her with the seed for a child.

What was Elisha's response? It was this, About this time next year,' Elisha said, 'you will hold a son in your arms - 2 Kings 4:16.

True to his word, and as he had promised, a year later the son arrived.

One day the father was working in the field, and the son became ill and quickly died. The woman, knowing Elisha was near, ran to him to inform him of what had just taken place.

But...not as you might imagine.

She shows up. There she stands. Now, check this out, when Elisha asked what was happening or had happened, she did not panic nor react in fear. Her response to Elisha seemed almost unnatural; it was truly unusual as she said to him, Everything is all right. In the next scene Elisha goes to the boy and raises him from the dead. It was a glorious miracle. Of course you can read all about it in 2 Kings chapter 4.

Faith, has a practiced and decisively different look and feel about it. It considers not just what is but what has gone on before. Faith measures the possible by a different scale. This kind of faith, what we see in the thoughts and history above, looks at our lives and the situations, troubles, predicaments we go through and see's them as God would. More than that though, faith is based on an understanding that we have a Heavenly Father who has our bests interests at heart always and regardless of what appears to be the tragic end.

In the Kingdom of God there is no limited understanding. This momma did not panic. Why? She knew something more than the current circumstance. Her spiritual awareness was enlightened beyond her friends, her family and beyond what typically happens historically to those who appear to be gone off and into eternity; those who have died.

Faith does not panic.

Faith realizes that what looks like devastating circumstances and tunes into the heart of God. It asks, How will God bring glory to Himself by demonstrating His power this time? And then it listens.

When Jesus appeared tooling across the water and his disciples caught a gander of it. It was in the middle of the night, they exclaimed, It's a ghost! (Check it out in Matthew 14:26) First appearances can bring great fear upon us even to the point of paralyzing us. Being a child who has moved from an earthly kingdom with it's laws and rules and moving into a Kingdom that operates outside of this world takes some getting used to. Find the Lord in your circumstance today. Exercise your faith today and trust Him for His outcome in the situation.Tap into what He is saying and doing. You will be surprised...and in a joyful way!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~