For some reason I find this story of Elisha and the Shunammite woman intensely moving. It describes in a simple narrative the kind of tensions that beset the spiritual life. We receive, we lose, we are made glad, we are grieved. We rarely understand why things happen and we find ourselves beating down God’s door in confusion and grief saying, “Why would you give and then take away?” The afflicted Job was willing to acknowledge this divine prerogative and his faith is upheld in Scripture as an example to us (Job 1:21). It was not that Job didn’t continue to suffer from the grief and confusion of his situation but that he accepted the mystery of God’s sovereignty as a mystery which he could not grasp. He was able to declare that God is still God even when everything crumbles around us. The Shunammite woman had made a place for God in her life when she built that room for Elisha, and she was therefore able to approach the man of God boldly when her time of grief came. Her confused exclamation to Elisha was received with tender compassion by the prophet and here he expressed the heart of God. Just because God is sovereign and knows the reason for everything, does not mean that he does not share our grief and feel compassion for us. Jesus wept with Mary and Martha for the deceased Lazarus even though he had allowed him to die by staying away from Bethany (John 11). Such is the empathy and tender compassion of our God.
Seek God today.
Read 2 Kings 4:8-37
