“Wait, what just happened?” “How did that happen?” “Who made it happen?” When humans have no explanation with a human response; you can be sure God did it.  God is doing it now. And God is doing it again! God still makes a Way through it all for people to see Him, love Him, call on His Name, and then trust and obey Him.  Our part is to pray with believing, humbled, committed hearts and God works “in mysterious ways” to accomplish His will that was planned long before the time of desperation was on our radar! God’s glory is seen and His faithful goodness saves us when we call on Him!

God delights in all the details of our lives. Nothing escapes God’s notice.  The prophet Zephania prophecies this truth about God; “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” Zephania 3:17 Read the whole chapter for more understanding of God’s love and character.

Truth: When we come with a broken heart, confessing our sins, God will receive us the way a loving mother receives a disobedient child. He will love us and even sing to us! He will bring peace to our hearts and quiet us in His love. Yes, we suffer for our disobedience, and sometimes we carry the scars of that disobedience for the rest of our lives. But the Lord will forgive us (1 John 1:9), forget our sins, and restore us into His loving fellowship. Redemption, Resurrection, and Restoration are supreme miracles of God given to us through Jesus Christ, His Son!

God miraculously shows up when we are at our lowest and don’t know what to do next in desperate times. God provides a Way out that we could never think or imagine.  This is who our God is—the God of miracles who never fails in His compassionate love for us!  When we get to the other side of the miracles God provides, we realize that He was with us all along.

He won’t fail
He won’t fail
No, He won’t leave you
He won’t fail

I’ve seen it with my own eyes
I’ve seen it in my own life
He keeps every promise
I’ll never be forsaken
He keeps every promise
I’ll never be forsaken

(He Won’t Fail, by Todd Galberth)

In fact, God has a plan to rescue us before we know we need saving.  I know, right?!

2 Kings 4

The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

² Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”

³ Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”

⁵ She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. ⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”

But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

⁷ She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

The Shunammite’s Son Restored to Life

⁸ One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. ⁹ She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. ¹⁰ Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”

¹¹ One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. ¹² He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him. ¹³ Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’”

She replied, “I have a home among my own people.”

¹⁴ “What can be done for her?” Elisha asked.

Gehazi said, “She has no son, and her husband is old.”

¹⁵ Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. ¹⁶ “About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.”

“No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”

¹⁷ But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

¹⁸ The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. ¹⁹ He said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” ²⁰ After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. ²¹ She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.

²² She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

²³ “Why go to him today?” he asked. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.”

“That’s all right,” she said.

²⁴ She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.” ²⁵ So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

“Everything is all right,” she said.

When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the Shunammite! ²⁶ Run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’”

²⁷ When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

²⁸ “Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

²⁹ Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

³⁰ But the child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

³¹ Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

³² When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. ³³ He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. ³⁴ Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. ³⁵ Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

³⁶ Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.” ³⁷ She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.

Death in the Pot

³⁸ Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these prophets.”

³⁹ One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine and picked as many of its gourds as his garment could hold. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. ⁴⁰ The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

⁴¹ Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He put it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

Feeding of a Hundred

⁴² A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

⁴³ “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked.

But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” ⁴⁴ Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Come to God. Believe in His Son’s redemption work. Repent and be saved. Trust and obey, even when you don’t understand it.  Live daily with expectant hope that God is in all the details of this life while preparing us for eternal life with Him! Yes, God and miracles go together like pie and ice cream!  Waking up to a brand new day this morning is a miracle! Thank God continually for His miraculous blessings!

All of your problems
All of your pain
All of your trouble
You can give it to Jesus
All of your burdens
All of your cares
Even your struggles
You can give it to Jesus

He won’t fail
He won’t fail
No, He won’t leave you
He won’t fail

God loves all and is in all He has created.  Consider this—God used Elisha to express divine power and concern by working wonders through this faithful servant. The miracles in this passage not only benefited the Israelites but also helped people whom the Israelites considered ungodly and unworthy of God’s attention. Why? Because God so loved the world!  Jesus IS the Way, Truth, and Life now:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

Trust in God, Jesus urges, and trust in Me. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Jesus is God’s miracle of eternal life for us!  What is the measure of our gratitude for this miracle by God through Jesus where our sins are forgiven and forgotten? How grateful are we to be restored to an intimate loving relationship with God who loved us first? This is huge—take all the time you need.

“Therefore, Go and make disciples…” God’s authority with Jesus’ command to all who believe and follow.  We who have been reconciled to God must show the Way for others to be reconciled.  (2 Corinthians 5)

There’s a “world of people” that God loves who need to know who God has given to rescue them from darkness and death.  Only God’s grace can impart life, whether to a barren womb or to a dead boy, and only God’s grace can impart spiritual life to the dead sinner (John 5:24; 17:1–3; Eph. 2:1–10).

God is the one who gave the boy life, but He used Elisha as the means to do it. So it is with raising sinners from the dead: God needs witnesses, prayer warriors, and concerned believers to point the Way to Truth who brings Life eternal to all who believe!  If that miracle wasn’t enough, God/Jesus/Holy Spirit promises to be with us always!

Lord,

You indeed never fail in your love and faithfulness to us—even when we are not as faithful to you as we should.  Thank you for your salvation—the first of many miracles in my own life.  I’ve seen, heard, and felt you with my own heart, mind, and soul. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen

And we’re singing…

He won’t fail
He won’t fail
No, He won’t leave you
He won’t fail