New Days, Old Demons: A Study of ElijahSýnishorn

Does God Perform Miracles Today?

In this section of Scripture, the life of Elijah intersects with a very poor widow and her son. To spare his life, as king Ahab and queen Jezebel are determined to hunt him down and end his life, God sends His faithful prophet into a season of separation for preparation. Sometimes, preparation for what God has planned next in our life requires separation from the normal routine we are accustomed to. We tend to listen better and learn more when our life is disrupted, and those seasons that can cause us frustration or even anxiety are often God’s divine disruptions to prepare us for what He knows is coming next in our life.

We are told that God sent Elijah to “Zarephath”, which means to melt or smelt, as one would a metal. Apparently, it was a place where metals were melted and smelted down, so that impurities rose to the top to be removed, leaving only the most precious and pure metal. This process requires a lot of heat and pressure, and God was purifying and preparing Elijah spiritually for both in his spiritual war with Ahab and Jezebel.

What is surprising about the scene is that God sends His Jewish prophet, traveling likely by foot, around 100 miles through rugged terrain while on the Most Wanted list of king Ahab, to live with a very poor Gentile woman and her son. Elijah was called to a city that was the very center of Asherah worship. This seems like the last place the prophet should go, but he goes in obedience to God’s command. God knows where Elijah is, comes to him, and tells him where to go. This same God knows where you are, will speak to you, and knows when and where you should go in the future. This reveals God’s ruling over everyone and everything and complete knowledge of every aspect of your life. His ways often do not make sense to us but, like Elijah, the key is to obey in faith until we see by sight that God knows what He’s doing.

Returning to the story, the poor woman could not feed her child, let alone herself, and taking on the burden of housing and feeding this man (Elijah) indefinitely seemed like a lot to ask. By a miracle provision of God’s grace, reminiscent of how He provided manna in the wilderness for 40 years, sustaining His people day by day, there was food every day in the form of flour and oil. Suddenly, her burden became her blessing, as the presence of this man of God in her home also brought the presence of God into her home. Much like the little boy who would later give his lunch to Jesus, this woman saw the little she had miraculously multiplied. God revealed Himself to her in her kitchen, as our humble God often shows up in the most ordinary places to meet with us.

In this lesson, we learn that God is to be trusted one day at a time. Faith allows us to sleep at night, believing that the God who got us through that day will get us through the next.

Suddenly and tragically, her son then died. Hurting, the woman who literally had no one and nothing but her son blames it on Elijah, saying in 1 Kings 17:18, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” It’s comforting to see that Elijah does not take or make this insult personal. Sometimes, people are overwhelmed, struggling, and just need grace for saying what was out of line. She sadly thinks that because of some sin in her life, God punished her by killing her child. If she understood the gospel, she would know that the Son of God was punished for sin so that she and her son would not have to be.

For reasons we will never know, Elijah the prophet takes the son upstairs, lays him down, and stretches himself over the son three times, which would have made him “unclean”. Elijah loudly prayed for God to bring this dead son back to life, and you can envision both he and the widow in tears pleading with God for a miracle. In prayer, Elijah “…cried to the LORD, ‘O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?’” Even the godliest people and greatest theologians still have many questions when faced with painful human suffering. The scene is heartbreaking and hopeful. They are praying for a miracle, just as we should be praying for miracles.

God does not answer Elijah’s question, but He does answer Elijah’s prayer. God then does His second miracle in this scene and raises the boy from the dead. Up until this point, there is no record in the Bible of someone being raised from the dead. Of course, the raising of the widow’s only son foreshadowed the raising of God’s only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This woman was reunited with her son. Who are you most looking forward to being reunited with in the Kingdom of God upon the resurrection of the dead?