Crisis mode:
“The child sat on her lap until noon and then died.” – 2 Kings 4:20, CSB
“Everything is alright… Everything’s all right.” – 2 Kings 4:23,26, CSB
“She came, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground; she picked up her son and left.” – 2 Kings 4:37, CSB
Act 2: Heartbeat
“Shalom,” but her reality was anything but. Her heart raced. There was no peace in the pounding of her chest. Elisha would know what to do. Had she asked him for the boy? No, but God had known the emptiness in her heart that beat now with such purpose. Elisha had prophesied the birth of this son – her son – who now lay lifeless on the bed upstairs. No heartbeat. Hers would now beat for both of them, like only a mother’s can.
“Shalom.” Saddle the donkey. Don’t slow down.
“Shalom.” No distractions, no substitutions. Elisha.
Elisha, the anointed man of God, sensed deep anguish as she fell, clinging to his feet.
“Did I ask for a son? Did I ask for this?” Her determination was competing with that anguish, and Elisha responded. Gehazi was dispatched ahead of them to bring the prophet’s staff, the symbol of God’s authority, to the boy.
No change. No breath.
She stayed with Elisha, arriving together with him. Straight to the upstairs room, praying, the man of God engaging face-to-face, hand-to-hand with death. A slight change. The little boy’s cold flesh was becoming warm.
Death was faltering.
Elisha paced. He prayed. He bent down again over his still body and…
Suddenly, the first shuttering sneeze shook his young frame as lungs engaged. Another sneeze, followed by another. Six altogether, inhaling life, expelling the last clinging, grasping holds of death.
“Shalom.” Only now with her renewed heart pounding with the joy and the shock of life. She would barely sleep tonight.
Think:
Peace, the sense of “everything’s all right,” or “nothing missing, nothing broken,” can be elusive in times of turmoil. In a fallen world, turmoil happens, but turmoil is not the time to quit. It’s the time for determination. In what ways do we see the Shunammite mother’s determination? In what ways do we see Elijah’s determination?
Even death itself is no match for the resurrection power of God. When He says the dream can live again, it can live. When He breathes life into our hopes and dreams, death can’t keep its grip.
Do you sense God giving you grace to contend for resurrection life in any area of His promise to you? Who’s contending alongside you?
Prayer:
“Lord, give me the single-focused determination required for the moment. May neither death nor distraction sway me when You are writing a new chapter in the story of Shalom. When it’s time to rest, give me grace to rest. And when it’s time to contend, give me grace to contend!”