Devotion 1 Kings 17:7-24 Living An Unbelievably Good Life Part 5

1 Kings 17:7-24 – Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”  12 “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”  13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”  15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.  17 Sometime later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”  19 “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”  22 The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”  24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”

“She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”  How is it that we are so quick to accuse God when our worst fears happen?  Yet we can be so slow to praise God every day for His continual blessings?  Is it true of us that when a great blessing happens that we are slow to thank God, or maybe even forget to?  Are we quick to accuse Him.  Family and Friends, God is good all the time and all the time He is good.  If we remember that and live that out, then even in the worst times we will praise God for His goodness and love and also we will seek and find His comfort and guidance, while never doubting.  Never. Doubting. Him.

Now this woman, whatever the sin in her life may have been, was now doing the ministry God had called her to.  All seemed well.  It would seem obvious that she was thanking God for the blessing of provision every day and she also was faithful to minister to Elijah.  All seemed well, until it wasn’t.

Life can be like that for us.  We can be doing all that we think we should do, and everything seems grand, and then tragedy, as we can see it, strikes.  We may wonder, as this woman did, what benefit is it to serve the Lord.  She thought she had been severely mistreated as she had, at the time, been faithfully serving.  Her faith and Job’s faith were different.  Job’s was more mature from daily and continued faithful honoring Him.  His response was very different than hers.  After He lost all his material possessions and all his children, he, immediately afterward, said “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21)  And the Lord then said of Job “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” (Job 1:22)  We see that what Job did not do was accuse God of doing anything wrong.  (There is much that could be discussed about that.)  We can learn that God will understand when we cry out in pain to Him.  Though not everyone is allowed to grieve.  See Ezekiel 24:15-25.  The Lord said to Ezekiel that his wife (who was the delight of his eyes) would be taken away from him (she would die).  Ezekiel was not allowed to mourn.  (Read the story for why this happened and what the Lord was showing to the people.)  It is human to mourn the loss and there is no sin in that.  However, we must never falsely accuse God if wrongdoing.  Nor should we allow anyone else to, in front of us, accuse God over what befalls us.  We must know that God is good and that He loves us and we must live our lives to show it.

Tragedy will visit all of us, repeatedly.  We live in a world corrupted by original sin, and ours.  How can we be prepared, as much as possible, for tragedy?  Family, we must seek the Lord daily in deep consideration of who He is.  We must be thankful to Him because He is good and because He does love us.  Also thankful for His many blessings that are outpourings of His great and eternal love for those who call Him Savior, Lord and Master.  We must have, beyond all other things, an intimate relationship with our God.  If we truly have a close and intimate relationship with God, if we truly do, then we absolutely will know, beyond all doubt, that He is always good and that He loves us always.  That will carry through the deep hurts.  Not that we won’t suffer deep hurts, and many of them, but that the relationship with God and the resulting knowledge of Him, will give us a peace that can be found nowhere else.  Know God.  Love God.  In knowledge of Him we will know and trust Him more.  In knowing God we love God.  In loving God we know and trust Him.  And each these two build on the other.   I pray that our lives will be saturated with His peace and His love that is found in His real presence in the Spirit and simultaneously in His Word.  Praise God! He is so good and loves us so much!  Praise God!