God gave her a miracle... and then it was taken away | Crossroads Daily

Hey, welcome back to the Crossroads Daily. I'm Justin. I'm Dani. I'm Miko. I'm Alex. All right. We are talking about a crazy story again today. Another story where Jesus as the resurrection of life, where God shows us that he can make dead things come back to life, including people. This one has a bunch of odd things in it. Such weird things. But let me just catch you up on it, give you the context. So 2 Kings 4, chapter 4 is where we're at, and there's a woman from Shunem. I'm just going to assume that's how you pronounce it. Don't disagree with me. Great. Sounds good to me. Yeah. Shunem. A woman from Shunem receives an unexpected gift from God, a son she never thought she'd have. And years later, that same child suddenly dies in her arms. Instead of giving in to despair, she goes looking for God's prophet, who's the one who told her she was going to have a child, the one who prayed over her to have a child years before. She goes searching for Elisha, that prophet. And then Elisha has compassion on her, and through his prayers, he asks God, would you bring him back to life? And God restores the boy back to life. I would say it's easy for us as Christians to go immediately to the victory of this story.

And it's easy for me to just go, oh, I see the ending. I can just read this story with a big smile on my face. And then if I just sit with it, I recognize a mother is holding her only child, and her child passes away. And I'm immediately brought to remember, oh, I've got four beautiful children. But we miscarried twice in that time of having kids. And I remember those moments of loss. But it's easy as Christians just to go, oh, take hope. The story ended great. And we miss the pain. I don't want to do that with any of us. I don't want to do that with stories like this. And so first question I would ask us is, what do you tend to do when life doesn't unfold the way you hoped it would? My default is to be a fixer or to try to take control of things on my own. And so when something goes wrong or there's grief in something, I think I immediately try to go into action mode. I don't know if I, I mean, this woman, what she does is she immediately goes to the prophet. She was like trying to go before God. And I'm like, I should probably fix this on my own. And that never works. And not only does it never work, it probably almost always makes the situation worse. But that's like, I immediately go into fix it mode. Not even for myself. I do it for other people too. I mean, my brother, I recently remember a time my brother was going through a hard time with school and school's really hard for him. And he was telling my husband Cameron and I about it. And I immediately went into it. Well, have you thought about this?

And what about that? Like, I just do that. And I like watched him. I watched his whole body like kind of shut down. Yeah. And I just like, let me just control that for you. Let me fix that for you. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work. I know. Control is a thing for me too. Same. Yeah. Not to be like the super Jesus guy, but I don't know. I think just having enough of those encounters in life, I have a very quick pivot to like, okay, Lord, help me to see this from your perspective. Like that's it. I'll struggle with the discouragement for a moment. And then it's immediately like, okay, Lord, give me your understanding. Help me to see this from the way you see this. Because so many times, like there have been seasons where like on the outside, clearly like this is just life is a dumpster fire. And I've seen afterwards in retrospect, looking back like, oh, this is what you were doing in that. Right. So I think that's just one of those things that's just that I've just carried with me. Like I've kind of gone through enough of those seasons where it's like immediately I'm like, okay, God, what are you doing in this? Help me to see this the way you're seeing this right now.

And that's for myself and even for others. Like with my wife, I immediately go into that. And to the point where as sometimes it kind of, I don't sit in. the grief enough with her to actually process it, because I'm immediately, and maybe because I'm not dealing with the weight of it on my, you know what I mean, on my chest in that moment also. So I'm kind of like distant enough where I'm not feeling the pressure of it, but then close enough where I care, and I'm like, okay, babe, this is what we need to do. And it's just, yeah, it's a quick pivot to God's perspective, yeah. Is there a, not to put you on the spot or any of us, but is there a time where that's happened recently or where you've experienced that disappointment and loss where you've had to pray that prayer to God, help me see this through your perspective? I could say sitting in my seat, transitioning to Crossroads, there was like a grieving of, you know, of everything that you're leaving behind or whatever. But for me, I was also sitting in the excitement of what God is doing now. Whereas my wife, it was like just a lot of grieving. She wasn't with me day in and day out through the week to kind of see like the excitement or whatever. So for her, like she, it really brought her to tears for a season. And then not only that, like it was going on here at church, but also even in work.

At work, it was like, okay, we're shifting you to this new role. You don't have a say-so in it. This is who you're going to be working with now. And she's like, but I've been building with this team and leading this team. So it was like in her walk, you know, in her faith walk and at work, she's immediately shifted into new territory. Yeah. You know what I mean? Not no say, but it's, you know what I mean? And I could say that for me, like looking back on it, I wasn't as maybe empathetic. Not that I wasn't empathetic at all, but I think that, again, it's that quick pivot. It's that quick shift. I don't like sitting in the sorrow of a thing too long. I'm like, okay, God, get this off of me. Help me to see it from your perspective. Like, that's my strength, you know, in that. And yeah, I think I could have probably said in that a little more gracefully with her, but definitely still was like, babe, this is what we have to look towards. Like, this is what our prayers should look like right now. And yeah. Yeah. I think you're touching on something important there.

The timeline of grief is different for everybody. Yeah, that's right. You gotta be able to sit in it. And I just think, I don't know if it's American. I don't know if it's Christian. I'm not sure which culture has infiltrated my heart more in that, but I can rush through it. Yeah. I can just go, no, cut our losses. We gotta move on. Yeah. Hope is there. Yeah. And I remember one of the first times I was over in Israel and met a friend who's Jewish and Israel family. And when I got there, he said, yeah, I'm off work for the next seven days. And I said, oh, really? Like vacation? And he goes, no, we just had a death in our family. And so we sit in grief for the next seven days and we all stop our jobs and sit together. And that was like, oh, I forget that that's a part of that grief. Yeah. Yeah. And an important part. Yeah. You gotta feel those things. And I think that's when the Lord draws the closest to us.

Well, in those moments when we're just, we're at our ends, that's where God comes in and goes, no, let me fill the gap. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I think in this story, Elisha is not annoyed by her. And I think I am afraid at times that God will be annoyed or that I will curse his name if I come in fire and anger. And I'm afraid to let that stuff surface. But if I look at this story, if I look at other stories like this, I have to, like, you can't help but see the compassion of God. Elisha doesn't say, how dare you come back to me after God gave you a child and not be grateful. It's just like deep compassion. He's like, Lord, Lord, would you bring this child back to life? And I think that's the heart of God. The other side of this for me is that we didn't even get to get into these things, but there's crazy stuff that happens here. He's like, send this staff, this stick, and lay it on that child's face. And then I'm gonna come and I'm gonna, like, I don't know, he goes mouth to mouth at one point. Like, I don't even understand that. Yeah.

You know, it gets weird. That's where CPR came from. What I would say is, yeah, that's right. CPR right there. A piece of this is like, if you're gonna walk with God, get ready for the weird. I am an inherent skeptic, man. And I read these stories and I just go, okay, let me just prepare for the weird, Lord. If there's something bizarre happening here, let me lean in and not lean out. Yeah. And all that I can take away from this story. I think the the key takeaway from this that I'd want anybody in here to hear is like man, trust in the compassion of God. Yeah, bring that raw emotion, bring that heart, and this is a mother's heart who never gave up and she went to the heart of God and said tell me about this, teach me your, give me your vision, give me your sight, and mold me to your heart. That's it.