2009 – Day 164.June 14 – A Humble Servant

2009 – Day 164.June 14 – A Humble Servant

Passage of the Day: 1st Kings 17: 21 - 23 … 21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him.” 22 Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. … 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives!”

My Journal for Today: What a scenario! God answers Elijah’s humble prayer in private so that his faith can be built to even greater heights; and then God answers the woman’s humble surrender of her son to Elijah, who had quietly asked for his lifeless body to be place in his arms and had taken him to a quiet place to be alone with God.

And as Swindoll points out, no words of Scripture, which are used to describe this scene, can do justice to the emotions which Elijah must’ve felt and then the mother when she saw her boy come back to life. To say “Wow!” falls so short for what transpired, doesn’t it? And if you read ahead in Elijah’s prophetic life, you can see why he had such great faith in going back to confront the court of Ahab.

And the element of character which Swindoll emphasizes in today’s bit of this story is Elijah’s humility. When he brought the boy down to the mother, stirring with life, he took no credit. He simply and humbly handed him back to the mother, saying, “See, your son lives!” He did NOT think or say, “Look what I was able to do.” No, by just stating the obvious to the mother, God gets all the credit, … just as He should.

Tomorrow (I’ve read ahead a bit in Swindoll’s book), we’re going to see the results of Elijah’s humble faith; so come back and read about that. But right now we need to focus on how our faith should work; and Elijah becomes our model here. All he did was humble himself before His Lord, giving over a totally out of control situation to a totally in control God; and then God did what He needed to do to show Himself to His children.

And therein lies the faith lesson here. God can pour His grace and power into a child with humble faith; but His grace will never be seen in one who acts in prideful arrogance. You can read this truth in Proverbs 3: 34, which is repeated in the NT in James 4: 6 or 1st Peter 5: 6, … that “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Elijah was a humble servant; and God poured His grace into this humble servant’s attitude of surrender and used a moment in history to show all who believe, like you and me, the result of humble faith. Most certainly that mother got the message. Prayerfully we do too.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, the lesson is not lost on this one. So, help me to remain humble before your throne of grace. Amen