I’m going to tell you a SECRET: “Some things ARE best kept secret!”

There are 3 kinds of secrets, well 4, kind that you keep from others, ones they keep from you, ones you TRY to keep from God but He knows everything so don’t bother, and the ones He keeps from us. The more we look into Him, the more we learn, including WHY He keeps us uninformed. We will see ALL when we get to heaven, not so much now. Only on a “need to know basis”. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, be grateful He has us take things one day at a time.

Secrets…

Keep a secret if it will harm a relationship between others. Keep a secret if the other person still wouldn’t understand it after explanation, and especially if they might twist it. Share volumous overflow info with ONLY a select few,  spare the others. ESPECIALLY don’t tell someone something if they WON’T keep it secret. Always speak truthful, but sometimes less info is better. 

The best secrets? Ones God wants hidden in your heart. The most numerous secrets? Everything God hasn’t revealed.  If God can keep it secret, so can you!

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

And do ask God, especially ask God…

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Isaiah 55:4

A well off woman who had most everything did not ask for a child because she feared heartbreak.  This woman, thru Word of Elisha, received a pregnancy and the child from God after the Prophet Elisha foretold her. But the child died. She then traveled back to Elisha and only to Elisha to speak about this tragedy. She seeked God even if she saw no resolution. She had to tell Elisha in her brokenness and because she experienced what she saw as failing hope, as she warned him. We know people who fear the worse, unfortunately she also experienced the worst. We ache for families who have lost a child, there is no heartbreak we could imagine more severe. The comfort we share is the real hope of seeing them again in heaven. I pray hope in the truth of God watching each child as His Own FOREVER. 

Hope is what God shares with us, ESPECIALLY GOD. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

Prophet Elisha stayed very close to God found out many secrets from God in his lifetime and prophesied for God. The people knew He was in close contact. However there are many times when God doesn’t tell us all the info and in this story (posted below) God didn’t tell Elisha the child died. Elisha realized this, and as soon as he heard, he sprung into action. We don’t know what the woman prayed, but we know she, Elisha didn’t display his prayer at that moment but “He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord.” Our prayer life should include these private moments as well as actions too.

The child was resurrected. The mother restored to holding her child. All to God’s glory thru Elisha’s actions. 

Restored Resurrected Rescued Reminded 

We are REMINDED by a resurrection story that is beautiful here, that we too will have resurrection and so will the children lost as well. We are to see this story is related to Jesus as well, He was the firstborn of the dead, resurrected not just for this earth but for eternity as well. Jesus went ahead of us to a secret place where He took our sins away. He went so we don’t have to go there. We believe in Him, we rely on Him. The mother didn’t tell anyone but the man of God about her grief. God already knew. God knows our pain.  We do need to share it with Him, in pain, sorrow,  anger, denial, and hopefully hope. He wants us to KNOW HIS HOPE.

Let us NOT keep His Hope a secret. 

Because of Jesus. The breath of the Spirit lives in us and in our loved ones. We will live on. Tell Everyone about this blessed hope. 

AMEN 

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2nd Kings 4:8-38

The Shunammite’s Son Restored to Life

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.”

One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him.  Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’”

She replied, “I have a home among my own people.”

“What can be done for her?” Elisha asked.

Gehazi said, “She has no son, and her husband is old.”

Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. “About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.”

“No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”

But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. He said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.

She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

“Why go to him today?” he asked. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.”

“That’s all right,” she said.

She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.” So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the Shunammite! Run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’”

“Everything is all right,” she said.

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

 “Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

But the child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.” She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.