“She said, ‘Everything is all right.’ She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, ‘Ride! Don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.’ Then she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.” – 2 Kings 4:23-25 (NIV)
There is a woman in 2 Kings 4 whose name we never learn. We know she was wealthy, that she was perceptive enough to recognise Elisha as a holy man, and that she and her husband built him a room on their roof with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so he would have a place to rest whenever he passed through. She gave to God’s work without being asked, simply because she saw a need and had the means to meet it.
God rewarded her with a son, a miracle child born to a husband who was too old for it to be naturally possible. Then the child died. He went out to his father in the field one morning complaining of his head, was carried back to his mother, and died at noon on her lap. What she did next is one of the most remarkable acts of faith in all of scripture: she laid the child on Elisha’s bed, shut the door, saddled her donkey, and rode to find the man of God. When Elisha’s servant Gehazi ran to meet her and asked if everything was all right, she said: it is well.
It was not well. Her son was dead. She knew it. And she said: it is well. This is not denial or spiritual performance. This is a woman who has decided that the God who gave the child is the God she is riding toward, and that the conversation about whether it is well will be completed when she gets to Him, not before. She refused to give her final verdict on the situation before she had made her appeal to God through the man He had sent into her life.
She reached Elisha and fell at his feet, and in a moment of raw honesty that breaks through all the propriety of her earlier response, she said: did I ask you for a son, my lord? Did I not tell you not to raise my hopes? She was not stoic. She was honest and broken and confused. And Elisha followed her back and raised the child. The investment she had made in God’s servant was returned with compound interest she had not requested.
Think about the person who has invested deeply in God’s work, who has given generously and faithfully, who has built the room and furnished it and made the provision, and who has then experienced a profound loss that seemed to contradict the faithfulness they were counting on. The widow who gave sacrificially to the church and then lost her job. The couple who planted their lives into a ministry and then experienced the death of a dream they had carried for years. The Shunammite’s story is for them: the God who gave the gift knows where the child is laid. Ride to Him. Tell Him honestly what happened. He rides back with you.
Today, if you are holding something that was given and then taken, say what the Shunammite said: it is well. Not because it is finished but because you are still riding toward the God who gave it and who has not yet spoken His final word on the matter.
Father, I am riding toward you today with what was given and then taken. I say with the Shunammite: it is well, not because the child is alive yet, but because you are the God who gave it and you are the God I am riding toward. Speak your final word over what appears finished. I trust you with the outcome. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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