“Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well.” (2 Kings 4:26)
If you’ve been around church for awhile you know this story of Elisha and the Shunammite woman. Out of her respect for this great man of God she and her husband had built on a room to their home so that anytime he traveled that way he might turn in and rest. To keep the story short, let’s just say that Elisha prophesied over her that she would not be barren any longer. And it was so.
After the child was born, the man and his wife enjoyed their son. He was still quite young yet when he died. She laid the child in the prophet’s room, mounted her donkey, and rode hard to find Elisha. He saw her coming and sent his servant, Gehazi, out to meet her. Here is where we pick up our verse for today. Notice the questions Elisha, through his servant, asked. “Is it well with you?” “Is it well with your husband?” “Is it well with the child?” There could be no other reason for her to fly so quickly to him except an issue with one of her family. Is it well?
There are several interpretations for the word well in this passage, but they all add up to what you would expect. Is everything complete, whole, and at peace with your family? Are the family members all in line with what God and you envisioned? Is there something missing in your life? In today’s vernacular we would ask, “How are you today?” And what is our standard answer? “Fine.” Fine? Just fine? We all know that answer is a lie, right? It is so bland, so meaningless, so facade. Fine.
Notice what she told the servant of Elisha. “All is well.” I’ve heard quite a few very good sermons on this verse over the years. Most of them pointed out that she was basically brushing aside the servant so she could get to the one she came to talk to. I’ll give them that point. She didn’t come to talk to Gehazi, she came to talk to the one who granted her heart’s desire in the beginning, the one who has a connection to heaven – a hot line to God, if you will. But if that were the only key point to her interaction with Gehazi, that would discredit every pastor, evangelist, teacher, and prophet in Christendom. I propose her answer was more a matter of faith, of seeing that which is not as though it were, than anything.
Note her confession: “It is well.” She knew all would be well if she could just get to Elisha. To be fair, Gehazi wasn’t really all that when you read the whole account of his service to Elisha. There is one correlation between this Shunammite woman and Abraham, the father of the faith: Both knew that God was able to raise up their child from the dead, if necessary, to fulfill His promise. Both had their children returned to them from the dead. Abraham because God spared Isaac’s life at the last moment, this woman because, well, he WAS DEAD! But it all came from her faith in the man of God and the God of the man Elisha. Because of that great faith she was able to say, “It is well.”
I could wax on about the reputation of the man or woman of God in the world and how that greatly affects our ability to minister to others, but that is not the point of this devotion. (Not to downplay the whole reputation issue, but that’s for another time.)
Today we are looking at this verse from the point of view of the woman. We are that woman today. What situation are you facing right now that you need a word from God about? You seem to be running up against an unseen wall in your prayers and are frustrated because there seems to be no relief. I have one simple question for you today: What are you confessing? What are you saying about your situation? Notice her response to somebody who approached her on the way to (the man of) God. She didn’t stop and go into detail about the problem – she confessed that for which she was believing. She was believing for the healing of her child. It would have been easy to get caught up in the emotion of the moment, to pour out her heart to anyone and everyone who would listen. The fact is, she had in her heart to approach the throne of God through the man who represented God to her and nothing was going to deter her from that. She believed in her heart and confessed with her mouth the result she wanted to achieve by the power of God. God answered her petition in her favor.
What about you? I know you have unsaved loved ones, you have people you care about that are sick, you have been given a vision or a promise by God and you can see it in your mind’s eye. But what are you saying? Are the words coming out of your mouth words of faith or words of doubt? The world has confiscated this whole idea of “positive confession”, so we don’t talk about it anymore. But there is something to be said about watching the words that come out of our mouths for they carry great power. We read in scripture that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Are you killing the vision by the words you speak, or are you breathing life into that vision by confessing it as finished?
The challenge before us today, my friend, is to watch what we say. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14). May you confess what God has shown you today. Maybe not to everybody, but especially before God in your private times and those times when Satan will try to bring doubts into your heart.
Be blessed.
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