Shunammite Woman • Declare God’s Faithfulness

ByMelanie Newton OT Women, Overcoming fear
Shunammite woman-declare God's faithfulness-fear to faith series
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How did you first hear about Jesus? Did someone tell you their story? People love to hear stories. As you recall God’s goodness to you in whatever situations you have faced, you now have a story to share. Sharing your story is a simple way to speak about God’s love for you and how He works in your life. You can bring hope to someone who needs it, especially someone who is trying to walk from fear to faith. In the last post, we learned 4 lessons about God’s provision for us as we looked at the lives of two single moms in the Bible. This is blog #11 in the “Fear to Faith” series. In this post, we will look at the example of an everyday kind of woman in 2 Kings 8 who took the opportunity given to declare God’s faithfulness to her as she told her story to someone who needed to hear it.

Listen to this blog as a similar podcast from the Everyday Women, Ever-Faithful God Bible Study of Old Testament women:

A Story to Tell

Hosting Elisha

In the Old Testament book of 2 Kings, you can read about Elisha, one of God’s prophets to Israel. Elisha ministered in and around Mt. Carmel on the western edge of the Plain of Jezreel, a fruitful farming valley. In this valley about ~20 miles away from Mt. Carmel, a woman lived with her husband in a little village called Shunem. Her home was not far from Nazareth where Jesus grew up centuries later.

This Shunammite woman and her husband trusted God and chose to remain faithful to Him even though they were surrounded by many Israelites who chose to worship idols rather than their own God. God honored the Shunammite family’s faith by giving them opportunity to respond to His wordthrough Elisha whenever he came to their town. They even built a special room to host Elisha.

One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” (2 Kings 4:8-10)

What a gracious, generous family!

Her fear to faith action

But the Shunammite woman had a special need. Her husband was old, and she had no child. Without an heir, she would have no means of support when her husband died. So God through Elisha promised a son to her. What a delight for her when he was born!

Several years later, the boy became sick and died. But the Shunammite did not succumb to fear.

Fear is a normal human emotion designed by God to alert us to danger so that we will take action against it.

The woman took action against the danger of losing her son. She laid her boy on Elisha’s bed then sought Elisha who was God’s spokesman and representative to the people. She did not go to anyone else. When she found Elisha, she pleaded with him to return with her to her home. Elisha prayed, and the Lord healed the boy.

Her story

Fast forward a few more years. God showed His faithfulness to the Shunammite woman by sending her a message through Elisha. This time it was advice about the action she should take in advance of a famine.

Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.” The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years. (2 Kings 8:1-2)

Because she trusted Elisha, she obeyed his advice. Once again, she did not give into fear but acted on it. She left her home and her land for seven years. When she came back, she had a problem. Either someone had illegally occupied the woman’s property, or it had fallen to the domain of the king by virtue of its abandonment. She needed to do something. So she trusted God again and acted.

At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. (2 Kings 8:3)

The king of Israel at this time, like all the Northern Kingdom kings, was not a godly king. He was a newly crowned king who was apparently unfamiliar with Elisha as God’s prophet. So God used the situation to “inform” him.

The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” The king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.” (2 Kings 8:4-6)

As the woman approached the king, he just happened to be talking to Elisha’s servant. As we would say today, that was a “God thing” not a coincidence. It was an opportunity given to her. And she took it! She told her story, declaring God’s faithfulness to her. God used that story to benefit her and to remind a godless king that God was still His God too.

Sharing a New Song of God’s Faithfulness to You

Your purpose

You and I are chosen to be God’s walking, talking, visible representatives to the world around us. Our purpose is to share what He has done in our own lives to those who do not know Him yet. We are to declare His faithfulness to us as He works in our lives and especially as we have learned to trust Him during difficult times. It is having a new song to share continually as described so beautifully in Psalm 40.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him. (Psalm 40:1-3)

Your new song

Consider anything you have patiently endured. What did you learn through that? With whom have you shared your “new song” of God’s faithfulness in your life?

Evidence of human distress is everywhere around us. Women are in bondage to guilt, fear, destructive behavior, fatigue and disappointment. Any wrong views they have about God leave them feeling empty, confused, and without meaning and purpose. Failure in relationships leaves women with a sense of rejection, worthlessness and extreme loneliness. They find themselves groping along the walls like a blind person trying to find their way to a door that will free them of their fear and give them purpose in life. We offer the light to those who are in darkness.

God’s plan to meet that need for every woman is a relationship with Himself through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. That is the good news of the gospel.

The Gospel Is the Good News About God’s Faithfulness

The Gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ coming to earth to save us from our sins. Christianity is Christ! It is all about a relationship with Him. Someone once said,

Jesus Christ laid down His life for you so that He could give His life to you so that He could live His life through you. (Major Ian Thomas)

If you have opportunity to tell someone one thing, tell her about Jesus.

  • Tell her that God loves her and wants a relationship with her. But, sin separates her from God’s love.
  • Tell her that Jesus is God, who came to earth as a man, and died for her sins.
  • Tell her that she can be completely forgiven of her sins and receive eternal life with God simply by believing in Jesus as her Savior.

That is the gospel. It’s a treasure that we have. And it is too powerful and valuable to keep to ourselves. We must share it! We must communicate to those around us that God is real and available to anyone who wants Him. We must communicate what God has done in our lives, declaring our story of God’s faithfulness to us.

Declare Your Story of God’s Faithfulness

People love to hear stories. Look at all the time we spend watching movies, reading books, scrolling through Facebook. As you have learned to trust God’s goodness in whatever things that are threatening you or causing you fear, and journaled about it, you now have a story to share. It’s your personal story about your faith in a faithful God. Sharing your story is a simple way to speak about God’s love for you and how He works in your life. You can bring hope to someone who needs it.

What Jesus said

Jesus met a man who had severe demonic possession; the guy had been miserable for years. His story is in Mark 5:1-20. After Jesus freed him from that horrible existence, the man wanted to get in the boat with Jesus and follow Him everywhere. Wouldn’t you?

This is what Jesus told him.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. (Mark 5:18-20)

Jesus told him to go back to his people and tell them everything that God had done for him. The former demon-possessed man would be sharing his story of healing and freedom from bondage to his family, his neighbors, and others who would not likely hear about Jesus any other way.

The joy of sharing

How did you first hear about Jesus? Did someone tell you their story? We get the awesome privilege of sharing that good news with others. There is tremendous joy in reaching out to those who do not know Jesus and introducing them to Him so they can know Him just as you now know Him.

Think of it this way: Imagine you had cancer and were chosen to be part of a special test group for a new cure. The treatment cured all of your cancer completely free of charge. What is the first thing you would do after you were healed? You would blast it all over Facebook, telling all of the other cancer victims about this great cure! Well, sin is a cancer affecting every single person. And you have been cured—forgiven of your sins—by your faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you remember how you felt before you believed in Jesus? Maybe you felt lonely, guilty, and without hope. The entire world is lost without Him. Jesus chooses to have His followers tell His story—what He does for them and through them.

Share What You Know

God loved this woman and her family. He knew what was going on in their lives. He was able to do something about it. But, God did not make the woman’s husband young again nor did He prevent her from having to endure the stigma of barrenness for a time. He did not prevent the famine from affecting their family. During her walk, a loving God said no to some things. Yet, she chose to trust Him rather than submit to fear. And, He rewarded her faith with an outpouring of His blessing on her family. Likewise, God may not choose to fix your crisis so you experience no pain. But, in any and all situations, you can count on these truths…

  1. God loves you.
  2. He knows what is going on in your life.
  3. He can do something about it.
  4. You can trust His goodness in whatever He chooses to do!

You have a story to share about your walk with God. Your story illustrates the power of God in your life. It illustrates His faithfulness to you that helped you get out of any difficult situation and “gave you a firm place to stand.” You do not need to be an expert in the Bible or have years of experience as a Christian. Just share what you know. Declare God’s faithfulness.

In the next post, we will see that Esther trusted God to work in the background of her life.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with His faithfulness, so you will choose to trust Him with every fear.

All of the above information is covered in the Everyday Women, Ever-Faithful God Bible Study or the shorter The Walk from Fear to Faith Bible Study.

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