Daily Devotional for Sunday, April 27

The Reminiscing About Elisha

“And Gehazi said, My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life,” 2 Kings 8:5.

A minute is a very short amount of time. Unless I have something in the oven with a timer set, I hardly even notice the passage of one minute. However, there are moments in our lives that seem frozen in time; the first time we see our newborn child’s face or the last time we said good-bye to our dearest loved one. Those moments contain only sixty seconds, but their memories last a lifetime.

            There was such a moment in the life of Elisha’s servant, Gehazi. He was in the presence of the king of Israel recounting all the miracles Elisha had done. This must have been quite a lengthy conversation because the list of Elisha’s miracles is quite long.

Gehazi recounted the story of the Shunammite woman and all of her kindnesses to Elisha. He told how she had graciously built an upper room in her home to show hospitality to God’s prophet and how God repaid her kindness by giving her a child; only for that precious child to die in his mother’s arms just a few short years later. I can just imagine the look of surprise on Gehazi’s face, when, at the very moment he was telling the king how Elisha had raised the child from the dead…he turned to see that very same boy and his mother, the Shunamite woman, standing before the king. What a moment! What a testimony to Gehazi and King Jehoram!

The world will chalk the timing of these events to coincidence; however, this was God’s providence and His perfect timing! God had not forgotten what this woman had done for Elisha. God protected her and her family throughout the famine and then He restored everything she had lost and more.

REFLECTION

Is there a moment frozen in your memory? How was God’s provision and providence evidenced in that moment?

Karen Meigs