The house was strangely quiet, except for the sounds of a woman's bitter weeping rising from downstairs. Elijah sat on the floor of the upstairs bedroom, staring at the young boy—the dead boy—as his lifeless body rested upon the bed. Elijah, too, undoubtedly tasted the bitter herb of grief.
"O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?"
It was a bold but appropriate question. The word Why? threads its way through Elijah's words.
After some time, Elijah rose from the floor and stretched himself out upon the child's body, crying out again to his God: "Let this child's life come into him again."
Then—nothing.
One wonders how long Elijah stared at the widow's son, waiting for some sign of new life. Then Elijah stretched himself out upon the child once more. Again he prayed.
Nothing.
Sitting on the floor, gazing once again at the dead boy, with eyes stung by the hot tears of heartache, Elijah pondered what to do next.
"Lord—please!" he must surely have begged.
And then, with a tenacity rarely seen even among the best of us, Elijah rose a third time and stretched himself across Death's young victim.
"O LORD my God," he pleaded, "let this child's life come into him again!"
The account in 1 Kings 17 offers a compelling portrait of the sovereign God being moved by the humble and persistent petitions of a broken man.
"And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived" (v. 22).
Did the boy's revival catch Elijah off guard? Did it frighten him? Did he jump up and stare in disbelief? Did that stare give way to a gleeful shout?
And think of the boy's mother.
Wow!
Are you that persistent with the Lord?
Many hurl a petition toward the Lord of Heaven, only to wonder whether it was ever heard. The notion of persisting with God seems to escape some of us, either because doing so is simply too difficult or because we have come to regard God as little more than a divine vending machine: insert a coin, make a selection, and out comes the answer of choice.
But prayer is not that.
Let me urge you onward in some hard work. Stay the course in persistent prayer concerning the very thing about which God has burdened your heart. Methodical, regular, unrelenting petition, threaded together by humility, open-handedness, and trust, is a difficult duty. It is also a joyful privilege.
And God always—always—hears.
He always responds, though not necessarily as we might wish or expect. His answer is always the answer of perfect wisdom, goodness, and love.
Even when we think otherwise.
