{"id":4774,"date":"2023-05-22T17:43:15","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T22:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2023-05-22T17:43:15","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T22:43:15","slug":"devotional-on-2-kings-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-kings-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 2 Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-N8w8iYLIjFg\/XmpoCnDsQcI\/AAAAAAABEAg\/7urQyqY3fPMSGHP-2zMg3KJLL0iWlqUmACKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/20170419_131808.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2017 &#8211; At old mill &#8211; Pigeon Forge, TN<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nDesperate faith<br \/>\n2Kings 4: &#8220;She said, &#8220;Everything&#8217;s fine.&#8221;<br \/>\nThis is a surprisingly powerful story. Elisha the man of God promises a woman from the town of Shunem that she\u2019s going to have a son. The child is born the following year. A few years later the little boy becomes suddenly ill and dies. His grieving mother seeks out Elisha. As she\u2019s coming she encounters the servant of Elisha first. Clearly something\u2019s wrong, but when Gehazi asks her how things are, her reply is &#8220;Everything&#8217;s fine.&#8221; It\u2019s only when she gets to Elisha that she pours out her heart. Elisha goes to the lifeless child and performs a miracle, raising him back to life. While I see that this is another story intended to show me how powerfully God is working in the life of the prophet, I\u2019m drawn to the Shunammite woman. If there\u2019s ever an example of desperate faith it\u2019s here. Her heart is broken as she lays her dead son on the bed. The only thought on her mind is to get to the man of God, the miracle worker who promised the son in the first place. She desperately wants to believe he can make things right, but looking into the face of such loss it\u2019s nearly impossible. Knowing that, she realizes she has to get to Elisha as quickly as possible, and, instinctively, she knows that even saying the words, &#8220;my son is dead&#8221; will destroy the mustard seed of faith to which she clings. How is it that &#8220;it is well&#8221; in her life? It\u2019s because she\u2019s holding on to God with her last ounce of spiritual strength. This is miracle-working territory. Without a cross or an empty tomb she believed the impossible. God can do a lot with faith like that.<br \/>\nTake Away: All it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed to see miracles take place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Desperate faith 2Kings 4: &#8220;She said, &#8220;Everything&#8217;s fine.&#8221; This is a surprisingly powerful story. Elisha the man of God promises a woman from the town of Shunem that she\u2019s going to have a son. The child is born the following year. A few years later the little boy becomes suddenly ill and dies. His grieving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1479,7],"tags":[117,304,340,722,1108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14464,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions\/14464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}