Spiritual authority

The Shunammite woman approaches Elisha and upon seeing her Elisha sends his servant to greet the woman, and then she refuses all kind of secondary conversation and insists on going directly to the presence of the prophet.

Finally when she comes before him she speaks to him in a very strong way in a sense because she says to him: "Did I ask my Lord for a son, didn't I say not to make fun of me?" The soul of this woman is bitter, she is in crisis and I am shocked, surprised with the authority and security with which this woman speaks to the prophet. This is an expression of her character and speaks to us of the authority we have as children and servants of God.

The truth is that God does not mind when we are in crisis that we express to the Lord our anxiety, our pain, even sometimes our annoyance and our doubts, God is not offended by that. And furthermore I believe that the Bible tells us to "approach the Throne of Grace with confidence."

This woman is a woman of spiritual authority and reminds the prophet that she did not ask the prophet for that child, and what is more, that when he offered her the child she told him, because it seemed something so impossible, that she said: "no you make fun of me. "

So this reminds us of the aspect of authority and weight that this woman has. "And then the prophet sends his servant and says: go where this child is" and gives him his staff, his staff as a sign of authority. In other words, Elisha is transferring the symbol of his authority, which is his rod, his staff, to go in his name and to resurrect the son of the Shunammite.

Interestingly, the woman is not convinced by this gesture of the prophet. And in verse 30 of chapter 4 he says: "As the Lord lives and as your soul lives that I will not leave." Another manifestation of authority and conviction, the clarity of this woman. How important that in the things of the Kingdom of God we be decided, we be clear, we be disciplined.

Do you remember that I told you a couple of times before that this woman kind of stands out above the prophet and shows a higher maturity than the prophet? When Eliseo suggests that if she wants he can talk to the king or the army general, she says very calmly: I don't need that kind of favor. And now Elisha thinks that if he transfers his power to his servant that will solve the problem, but this woman, she knows that something more powerful than this is needed. She knows that the level of need requires the prophet himself to go and resolve the situation, and so he refuses to go to Gehazi, she knows that is not what is required. She says: no, I want you to go and I am not leaving here until you go with me.

It reminds me of the words of Jacob wrestling with the angel: "I will not leave you until you bless me." The Lord sometimes likes us to put him between a rock and a hard place. He likes His children to show maturity and show spiritual authority, as in the case of the Zirophenician woman with her daughter who was demonized and the Lord gives her an initial refusal, and tells her that: "Miracles are not for Gentiles, they are for the Jews "and the woman tells him:" Yes Lord but still the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters' table, you can do a miracle to me even though I am not part of the family of Israel " and the Lord says: "Woman, the truth is that your faith is great, let it be done according to your faith, your daughter is healed", this woman gave a lesson in faith to Jesus so to speak although I don't know, it was not so much that as that the Lord was testing her to see her level of faith.

But here the Shunammite says to Elisha: No, I'm going to wait for you to go with me and you have to go. So Elisha got up and went with the woman. And certainly when Elisha arrives he discovers that Gehazi had not been able to do anything, the child was still dead, because Gehazi, even as we will see later in another passage, was a person who also had problems and defects of honesty, and perhaps that is why the Power of God could not run with all the freedom it had to run, the work of the prophet was directly needed and this woman had correctly discerned.

And when Elisha arrives there, the prophet discovers that the child does not wake up, we see that in verse 31. So it is important to have that spiritual discernment that comes as a product of an intimate relationship with God. We will continue our meditation soon.