Do you remember the last story about the mother who had enough food for herself and her little son and for Elijah as long as the famine lasted? But life was not all happiness after that. This mother had more to learn. God sent trouble into her life, and she was puzzled and sad and sort of angry. Why would God send such sadness to her after all this?
Her only child was sick, so sick that he stopped breathing. She hugged the little lifeless body to herself and called Elijah, God’s messenger, who had a little room in her loft. “O thou man of God,” she said, “art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son?”
She was right in saying that God had taken away the child’s life, but she did not know the heart of God. Her conscience was troubled by the past sin in her life, and she did not know the God who can bring back life.
Do you? Have you learned that the precious blood of Jesus has power to clean every trace of your sin from God’s record? Do you know the Savior who was raised from the dead and who lives in heaven right now? It is wonderful relief and joy to know Him.
“Give me thy son,” said Elijah. He took the child from her arms and carried him up to his little room and laid him on his own bed. But Elijah was puzzled too. Why does God send sorrow to His children? Perhaps we don’t know now, but we will know someday. Elijah cried to the Lord and then stretched himself upon the child three times. “O Lord my God,” he said, “let this child’s soul come into him again!” And God restored the child’s soul, and he began breathing again. Then Elijah brought him to his mother. “See,” he said, “thy son [lives]”!
But while that mother waited with empty arms, she had learned something. “Now . . . I know,” she said, “that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.” (We must remember that before the Bible was written, God’s Word came through His prophets, like Elijah.)
The food supply had not taught her that the Word of God is the truth, but sorrow had taught her. “Now . . . I know,” she said. Do you know? Are you sure that those sins of yours are settled before God and that you really believe that the Word of God is truth? If so, your life will have a happy ending in heaven, regardless of what the troubles may be right now. God is faithful. Will you trust Him now?