The Lord Will Grant the Requests of Our Hearts

Elisha sends for the Shunammite woman to offer her some favor because of how attentive she has been to them and how much she has cared for their well-being. Elisha assumes she would be interested in a material favor, but the Shunammite woman surprises him by saying: Thank you, but no thank you. I don’t need anything.

I live comfortably among my own people. I don’t need you to lift me to another level among people of high standing or introduce me into society, because I am fine where I am.

There is something else very lovely about this woman: she is comfortable in her own skin. She doesn’t need to rub shoulders with influential people. And I believe the mature Christian is the same way. A Christian is not dazzled because someone of great importance calls or invites them to their home, because they are not so enamored with the world; the things of the world do not interest them much. One sign of character and spiritual maturity is that steadiness, that sobriety in life in which we do not let ourselves be manipulated by people or by what they think of us, or find ourselves always seeking connections or social influence. This woman is secure in herself.

But we see that even so, Elisha wants to bless her; Elisha insists that he wants to do something for her. And so he asks Gehazi, in private, I imagine: Hey, what can we do for this woman? Gehazi has discovered that she has no children because her husband, he says, was already advanced in years. This tells us that this woman was much younger than her husband, because she was of childbearing age. And so Gehazi says to Elisha: Look, she has no children; her marriage has produced no heir.

Then Elisha sends for the Shunammite woman and tells her, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” She reacts with disbelief and says to him, “My lord, don’t do that; don’t make fun of me.” In other words, to this woman the idea of having a child is so wonderful that she cannot imagine it being possible in her life. But God is more generous than we could ever conceive or imagine.

The Bible says that when we concern ourselves with the Lord, He will grant us the desires of our heart. When we delight in God, He grants us the thoughts, desires, and deepest dreams we have—dreams that sometimes we do not even dare to entertain because they seem so grand and so unattainable at first glance.

This woman is blessed by God in an extraordinary way. The Holy Spirit in Elisha discerns and uncovers the intimate need in her heart, her lack of a child, and grants her that desire of her spirit.

There is something here, too, about how, when we serve the Lord selflessly, the life of God enters and enables us to be made fruitful. When the Holy Spirit falls upon us, He enables our lives to bear fruit. Just as this woman’s womb was awakened by the Word of the Holy Spirit, so it is with us when we enter into an intimate relationship with God, as this woman did by inviting the prophet to stay in her house and making a room for him. This caused the life of God to enter her life, so that she was made fertile and enabled to bear fruit.

When God enters our lives, He changes our barrenness and enables us to be a blessing. We are a blessing to our own lives, the longings we have are fulfilled, and He also enables us to be a blessing to those around us.

An interesting detail is that Elisha does not go before God and say, “Father, allow this woman to have a son.” Instead, Elisha gives the prophetic Word, the Word of authority, and states it as a fact: Next year at this same time, in 12 months, you will be holding a son; you will have a son in your arms.

How beautiful the prophetic Word is. When the prophetic Word is spoken aloud, when it is proclaimed with the backing of the Holy Spirit’s power, it is creative: circumstances align, and the physical world is brought into alignment to meet the declarative Word of the prophetic man or woman.

In this case, I imagine that when Elisha gave the Word that by this time next year she would conceive a son, this woman’s womb immediately began to come into alignment in preparation for the son who was to come. Her husband, who did not even know about this conversation, was also miraculously enabled to father a child despite his advanced age.

How interesting it is that so many people in Scripture have children at an advanced age, when they could not have them. Abraham has a son with his wife Sarah when they are nearly 100 years old; so too do the mother and father of the prophet John the Baptist. Mary, the mother of Jesus; Hannah, the mother of Samuel, as we saw in an earlier meditation; and likewise Gideon’s mother. These miraculous figures are conceived through the supernatural fertilization of the Holy Spirit when their parents could not conceive life, because when God visits, God gives life.

How wonderful that, by turning down the initial offer of a mere social favor, this woman prepares herself to receive the most wonderful thing she would ever have dared to imagine she might receive: a son she would hold in her hands through the creative prophetic Word spoken by the prophet Elisha. In the same way, our lives will be blessed when the power of God enters and we allow Him to enter our lives and rest within our innermost being. God bless you, and in our next meditation we will continue with this wonderful passage.