The God of Resurrection

1 Kings 17:17-24

¹⁷ After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

 ¹⁸ And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

 ¹⁹ And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed.

 ²⁰ And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”

 ²¹ Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”

 ²² And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.

 ²³ And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.”

 ²⁴ And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

One of the greatest stumbling blocks to a dynamic faith are the sorrows that come into every life. For some, it seems that no matter what they do there is struggle and pain. God seems distant and His ways seems strange or even hurtful. It feels incongruent with what we think we know about Him. This is what the widow experiences in our story for today.

At this point in her life, she and her son have been spared starvation because God intervened in their lives through the ministry of Elijah. And just when it looks like they are going to live through this difficult time, the boy becomes ill and dies. Of course, the widow is staggered by the tragedy. She erroneously believes his death is the result of her sin, which was a common belief at the time (and isn’t unheard of even today.) Elijah takes the boy and prays over him, begging God for mercy. God does what only He is able to do and the boy is resuscitated. The woman’s faith is restored and all is well.

But what about the times when God doesn’t come through for us and revive a life? What about the times when we aren’t healed or we lose our job or a child goes astray? Has God ignored our prayers? It feels like it. Today, a very dear and precious friend of mine received devastating news about a grandchild and honestly, it shakes the faith a little bit. Why doesn’t God just take care of these things? Why do they even have to happen in the first place? Then I come to this particular reading and my heart goes out to that poor widow woman who had no one but her son, and he is taken from her in a most permanent way. These events are heart breaking. But they cannot ever be faith ending. It’s easy to say and difficult to live, but we must always be certain that God knows what He’s doing. The pain that is inflicted on the world is because sin is inflicted on the world. There are painful and tragic things that happen every day but not one of those events is outside of God’s control. What we can do is go to God with every single one of those events and tell Him how hurt we are. We can share with Him our pain and request that He make changes. He can and will, if that is what is best for us and for those around us. We have to trust that He is doing the wisest and best thing at all times because He is God – and we are not.

Wish I had a big solid answer for these issues – but I don’t. I only have faith that God is still God and He is completely trustworthy.