God Allows Losses, Then Provides Gifts - June 18, 2010
God Allows Losses, Then Provides Gifts - June 18, 2010
Devotion - God Allows Losses, Then Provides Gifts - June 18, 2010
Daily devotion from 1 Kings 17:17-24.
Sometime later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 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?" "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. Then he cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this boy's life return to him!" The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. 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!" 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."
1 Kings 17:17-24
You think you’ve got it bad? Listen to what happened to this widow around 850 BC. First, she lost her husband. Without the support of her husband and in the midst of a severe famine, it was literally only because of a miracle that she and her son survived. Then the unthinkable happened.
She lost her son.
When we get to know people like this woman, we see clearly that this world of ours is a world of loss. Nothing has changed over the millennia. Everything we lay eyes on, everything we touch, smell, see and taste – it will all be lost. One thing we have, though, that will last beyond the here and now is our soul. Sometimes we coast through life as though this were not true. Other times we are extremely aware that this is true.
Isn’t this the ultimate human problem – how do I deal with a world of loss, aware that one day I’ll lose even my own life?
Some find security in being a self-proclaimed “pretty good person.” Others find security in favorably comparing themselves to someone they assess as a “pretty bad person.” Still others, and possibly the majority, find “ostrich security” by sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring the subject of death entirely.
We must admit that all these “solutions” are failures. We don’t get to decide who goes to heaven and who stays out. Heaven is God’s home, and it is God’s decision who gets to live there in his presence? We can only look to God for mercy and for help with the ultimate human problem. At the end of the day, he is the only possibility we have left. At the end of the day, he is the only possibility we need. He sent Jesus, his Son, to be the answer for the ultimate human problem.
What a gift! Perhaps that’s the greatest miracle of this account – arguably even greater than raising a dead person back to life – that a sinful human devastated by loss after loss was led to deep trust in God’s promises. May God give all of us such a faith. Remember – when we trust in Jesus, we’re trusting in the almighty God who can raise the dead to life.
Dear Savior, give me a faith that will not shrink, though pressed by many a foe; that will not tremble on the brink of poverty or woe. Amen.
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