Have you ever been in a situation where you wonder what God is doing in your life? You’ve done your best to live for Him, to obey Him, to serve Him, and then the walls of your life come crashing down. The worst blow of all hammers down on you. Why would God allow what He did? What did you do to deserve this? In our Old Testament reading from this week’s Lectionary tells the account of a woman who was a faithful follower of Yahweh, when tragedy happened in her life, and how she handled it.
The events of our Scripture passage take place during the 9th century BC in the northern Kingdom of Israel. The prophet Elisha had taken over the ministry of Elijah, who had been transported to heaven in the fiery chariot. The northern Kingdom of Israel had long since fallen into great apostasy. None of their kings followed or obeyed Yahweh, and the majority of the population were deep into the worship of pagan gods and goddesses.
Elisha frequently criss-crossed the country preaching the message of the Lord, admonishing the people to return to the worship of Yahweh. On one of his preaching trips, an unnamed wealthy woman, who was also a believer and worshiper of Yahweh, invited the prophet to come to her home after his preaching, and have a nice home-cooked meal. She lived in the village of Shunem, which was basically in the heart of the northern kingdom. Whenever Elisha passed through, which would be fairly often as he crossed back and forth across the country, she invited him to stay with her and her husband. This happened frequently enough that the couple made a special room in their home for Eisha to stay in (vs. 8-10).
This was a way for this unnamed couple to do something for the Lord. They were two of a very small minority of believers in the now extremely pagan northern Kingdom of Israel. They gave of what they had, a comfortable room in a nice home for the prophet to spend some time, good food and fellowship, whenever he would frequently pass through the country bringing God’s Word. Her kindness and generosity to Elisha would ultimately return again to her in an even greater blessing. As we read further, God blessed the previously barren woman with a son (vs. 14-17).
The Scripture passage then skips several years into the future. The boy is older, old enough to be able to help his father out in the fields, harvesting the crops. The boy collapsed, possibly from heat stroke, and was brought by servants to his mother, where a few hours later he died (vs. 18-21). Here the Shunammite woman’s faith was tested, and she came through admirably! She could have screamed out to God, that after all she had done for Him and for His servants, after having true faith in a pagan culture, this was how He repaid her?! That was not what she did. She did not start planning the boy’s funeral, either. Her strong faith compelled her to lay the boy in the prophet’s room, and saddle up her donkey to go in search of the man of God, Elisha (vs. 21-22).
The Shunammite woman reasoned that if the Lord, through Eisha, could give her the child, through Elisha the child could be raised from the dead. This showed great faith in the Lord, not anger or bitterness. In the whole of the Old Testament there were only three instances of someone being raised from the dead - Elijah raising the widow’s son (I Kings 17:17-24), this instance here, and then a dead man when his body landed on Elisha’s bones (II Kings 13:21), which happened years later. Rather than wallow in her sadness and anger, she put action to her faith and sought out Elisha.
When the Shunammite woman found Elisha, and was asked how things were, she answered with faith, “It is well.” (vs. 26). How could she say that when her son lay dead in a bedroom at home? She had faith! Her faith believed that if God gave her the boy, He would give him back to her. Only faith could answer that it was well!
Faith also does not let go, nor will it be put off or discouraged. When the woman found Elisha she would not let go until the Lord answered her (vs. 30). Nor was the prophet discouraged in his faith. He returned to her house, and went into the room to pray for the child. He was in prayer for the child for some time, with the laying on of hands, and the Lord heard and answered their prayer, rewarding their faith (vs. 32-35).
We might wonder why God would allow this to happen to this godly woman, a woman who honored the Lord and His servants, one who remained faithful to Yahweh, even when her country had rejected Him. He blessed the Shunammite woman with the child, then why take him away? Life is not an unbroken string of joyful events, even for godly believers. This is contrary to what the “Prosperity Gospel” people claim. We live in a fallen world, where bad things happen, even to good people. God calls us to trust Him with the end of the story, as well as the beginning. Trust in Him and have faith, just as the Shunammite woman did.
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