The Works of God

I love the people in my life who have such confidence in God that they are literally afraid of nobody.  Respectful, careful in their words, gracious and kind, but without any fear of man.  It was one such couple who knew that they could not do or say anything to comfort me, in fact had to put up with quite a bit of foolish, heretical talk from me in the worst days when I had no hope and was consumed with bitterness over my son’s disabilities, who God used to bring me back to himself.

Elisha is such a man.  He is speaking down to the king of Israel, as if he were a foolish child rather than a king in a difficult diplomatic mess.  Elisha knows God is doing something, and is confident God will make much of himself.  We do not know if Elisha had already been given instruction from the Lord on what he was to say to Naaman.  Even with that knowledge, however, how many of us would speak this way to a person in authority, especially a king with the power of life and death?

And we must be Elishas for our children, speaking truth to authority and guiding next steps.  More than once I have entered those IEP meetings and said, “no, we aren’t going to do it your way, we’re going to do it this way.”  The figurative ‘tearing of clothes’ is obvious at those times.  The various logical reasons are presented and objections placed on the table.  But with persistence and appeal to federal and state law, I frequently get what I ask.  And I know I carry a certain confidence into those meetings because I know my rights and my son’s rights.

Thus, how much more confidence did Elisha have!  He was a prophet of God, who is a much higher authority than any king or any rule of law.  And Elisha’s God is our God!  Jesus himself is our advocate!

That doesn’t mean that people will appreciate what we have to say, however, as we will see in Part 6.