Elisha and the Shunammite Woman
Creating an attitude of expectation
2 Kings 4:8-37
The story of
Elisha and the Shunammite woman is one of my favorite Bible stories because
there are hidden treasures and lessons to be found in it. Back in the Old Testament days, God would
raise up prophets to speak His Word to the people. And all the Jewish people recognized that
these prophets were from God and that they carried God’s Holy Spirit anointing
on their lives.
Elisha was
one of God’s powerful prophets who lived around 575 B.C. and traveled around
Israel spreading God’s Word and performing miracles and healing the people. On his many journeys Elisha often traveled
through the country of Shunem and a woman who lived in Shunem wanted to get to
know Elisha better so that she could know more about Elisha’s God. She invited Elisha to come to her house for
dinner and let him know that he was always welcome to drop by for dinner any
time he was traveling through Shunem.
Here is how
Scripture starts telling the story. “It
happened one day that Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a notable woman,
and this woman persuaded Elisha to come to her house and have dinner. So as often as Elisha traveled through Shunem
he would turn in there for dinner. The
woman mentioned to her husband, ‘Look now, I know that Elisha is a holy man of
God, who passes by us regularly. Please,
let us make a small upper room on the wall of our house: and let us put a bed
for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand: so it will be, whenever
he travels by here he can turn in and stay in this guest room.’ ” (2 Kings
4:8-10)
This
Shunammite woman had seen Elisha preach and perform miracles and healings in
God’s Name and she wanted to see more. She
was intentional in helping Elisha by cooking dinners for him and building a guest
room for him so that she could get closer to him and to his God. She had seen God’s power flowing through
Elisha. And by making a room for Elisha in
her home, I believe she was making room for God in her life. And making room for
the supernatural and perhaps for God’s miraculous in her life too!
The Shunammite
woman approached God’s prophet, Elisha with enthusiasm and her attitude created
an atmosphere of expectation. She
believed his God was holy and I think she was open to coming closer to his God.
I think we could follow her example and create an atmosphere of expectation
when we come to God, knowing that God is good and He wants to guide our lives.
During his
travels, Elisha spent many nights in the comfortable room that the Shunammite
woman and her husband built for him. He
enjoyed many dinners around their table.
Scripture tells us that one day Elisha asked the Shunammite woman what
he could do for her perhaps to return her kindness, and she couldn’t think of
anything. So Elisha told her that in a
year she would have a son. This woman
had never been able to become pregnant and now in older age she and her husband
would finally have the baby they had always wanted! Indeed Scripture tells us that the Shunammite
woman did have a baby boy the following year!
But the
story doesn’t end here. Six or eight
years later the Shunammite woman’s little boy got a very bad head ache and died!
Scripture says that when her son died the
Shunammite woman ran to Mount Carmel where Elisha was performing miracles and
she insisted that he come back with her and pray that God would bring her son
back to life. Elisha rushed back to her
home with the Shunammite woman and held her dead little boy and prayed to the
Lord. And God answered Elisha’s prayers
and the little boy sneezed and came back to life again. (2 Kings 4:32-36) This woman had a holy boldness that would not
take no for an answer. And God honored
that.
Another
woman we read about in the Bible also had great expectations for what God would
do for her, and she also received her miracle.
Here is the story. “Suddenly, a
woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the
hem of Jesus’ garment. For she said to
herself, ‘If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.’ “(Matthew
9:20-21)
This poor
woman had been sick and losing blood for twelve years. She must be very weak losing blood for all of
those years. But this woman knew who
Jesus was, - that He was the Son of God and that He had the power to heal. She had seen Jesus heal and she knew people
who had been healed by Him. And she knew
what she wanted from Jesus. She wanted
to be healed.
This woman
touched Jesus’ robe and Scripture tells the rest: “”Jesus turned and saw her, ‘Take heart,
daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has healed you.’ And the woman was healed from that moment
on.” (Matthew 9:22)
Jesus said
that this woman’s faith healed her! She must have had the kind of faith that
pleases God for Jesus to tell her that her faith was the cause of her
healing! So what was her faith made up
of? How can we have that kind of faith
too? First she knew who Jesus was and she
believed that He could heal her. And she
knew what she wanted from Jesus. She
wanted to be healed. And she went about
getting what she wanted from Jesus.
If we are to have faith like this woman, the
first thing we need to do is to know who Jesus is – to believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God and Savior and Lord of our life. We need to believe in His power and ability
to save us and answer our prayers. And
secondly we need to know what we want from God.
He invites us to “Ask and we will receive” if we believe in Him and if
what we ask for is in His will.
Perhaps we need
to make up our minds that we want more from God and more from ourselves than we
have been experiencing in the past. Why
settle for less? Why walk away with
empty hands when God would have us take away blessings and miracles for others
and for ourselves.
Scripture
says: “If we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with
perseverance.” (Romans 8:25) It
sounds like perseverance is also part of faith.
God calls us to be people of faith and when we have faith in God, an
attitude of expectation comes along with faith!
We are willing to persevere or to keep on waiting and praying when we
have an attitude of expectation.
Of course we
need to be cautious to avoid negative expectations. Many of us are not receiving answers to our
prayers because we are not expecting to receive answers to our prayers. Scripture says: “…anyone who comes to God
must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who diligently seek
Him.” (Hebrews 11:6b) God
wants us to expect good things from Him and diligently seek Him. Do we do that?
If we have a loved one who we have been
praying for and there have been no turnarounds we can start out by worshipping
the Lord. Praise Him and thank Him for
all He has done. Lose ourselves in the
majesty and power of God and how He is able to take care of our loved one and
her problems. Look to God instead of the
difficulties of our unanswered prayer. The
more we concentrate on God the more He will reveal Himself and then our
expectations will rise. And we will have
the faith to receive or persevere for our answer whenever it arrives.
We make room
for God by renewing our minds. By
letting the Holy Spirit move in our hearts.
By taking time each day to wait on the Lord. We are like the Shunammite
woman and that room she built represents an attitude of expectation. If we want to experience God’s miracles in
our lives we need to make room for God in our lives each day and come to Him
with love and joy and expectation. God
is waiting for us to come!
Many of the
ideas in this blog were taken from Kynan Bridges book, “The Power of Unlimited
Faith”
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