Title: When Problems Come, Grace Comes too
2 Kings (10) When problems come, grace also comes
(2 Kings 4:18-37)
< Beware of superstitious beliefs >
Life is a series of problems. The same is true of the life of a saint. God trains believers through such problems. Once the problem is done, it's bearable as it is, but training always involves repeatability. Few things go well all at once. If you lift weights once and become strong, you will study everything with weights once, and if you get 1st place, you will study everything. The biggest reason people drop out of the blessing queue is because of repeated training and problems.
Don't be surprised by the repetition of the problem. If there are no problems, the muscles of faith cannot improve, so God gives another problem even after the problem is solved, and another experience even after giving the experience. The text depicts the process of a Shunammite woman who miraculously solved the problem of not having a son, and her faith grows as she encounters a bigger problem and solves that problem.
One day, the Shunammite woman's miraculous child died on her mother's lap while complaining of a headache. She hurried to Mount Carmel, about 40 km from Shunem, and informed Elisha. Upon hearing this, Elisha hurriedly sent Gehazi to place his staff on the face of the dead child. As Gehazi did, no history occurred. It means that Elisha's staff itself is not important.
Sometimes, they hold up the cross to chase away Satan, but strictly speaking, it is superstitious. It is not the staff that is important, but true faith. The work of God's grace is often extended from the problem of the soul to the problem of the body. So, if the soul is open to God, the possibility of healing increases significantly.
Faith is the most basic and essential element of healing. But it's not just a lack of faith that prevents healing from happening. Therefore, do not mechanically say, “It is because of lack of faith” to the sick who do not get better even though they pray. Such an attitude can become an unbiblical and inhuman attitude that even hurts people who are suffering from illness.
Faith does not force 100% miraculous healing. True faith is trusting God to do his best work and completely surrendering oneself to God's overflowing love and protection. They also come to Jesus in anticipation of a miracle of healing. The important thing is to 'believe in Jesus, the Great Healer', not 'believe in the healing itself'. The 'belief in the belief that you can do it' of the positivists and the 'belief in Jesus who made it possible' of the true believers may seem similar, but they are very different.
<When trouble comes, grace comes too>
So, through Gehazi, when there was no history, Elisha arrived at her house and saw the dead child lying on his bed (verse 32). So he went into the room alone, closed the door, prayed, and fell on his face, putting his mouth on the child's mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes, and his hand on the child's hands, and fell on his body, and the child's flesh became warmer and warmer (verse 34). Then he came down from the child's body and checked his condition. Then he got up on the child and fell down again. The child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes (verse 35). This is a unique healing scene. Miracles unfold in many ways. Therefore, there should be no mechanical and ups and downs trying to follow this scene.
After raising the child, Elisha let Lee Yi take her, and she fell to the ground at Elisha's feet, bowed down, and took her son and went out (verse 37). What was her mind then? It must have been a mixture of admiration, emotion, emotion, and respect. She had another taste of miraculous history. This scene symbolically shows that the work of God's grace does not end at once, but continues. Problems continue, but grace continues.
Why do problems and diseases arise in the life of the saints? That question will not be answered until we go to heaven. He would win the Nobel Prize for Theology if he presented the exact causes of problems and diseases with mechanical and schematic clarity. Don't get too obsessed with finding answers to those questions in your life. It is the most blessed thing to be willing to live with that question and pray every day, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”