Lent

Today is Good Friday. A day of death. It is the day that "darkness came over all the land," a representation of what this season of Lent has felt like to me.

I intended to observe Lent this year by giving up my quest for interior redesign. But, when I woke up on Ash Wednesday, I began to learn that God had plans for me to give up something much bigger than dreams of a home makeover. On the morning of March 9, as I was doing my daily Bible reading, I came upon the story of Elisha and the Shunammite woman in II Kings 4:8-36. The Shunammite woman had no son.

“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.

Several years later, the boy died in his mother's arms. She immediately lay the boy down and called to her husband saying, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. 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’?”

So, Elisha followed the woman to her house, and he raised her dead son to life by the power of God.

Well, that sounded like a strangely familiar story, except for the part about the dead son being raised to life. I cannot tell you how many times I have said to God, “Did I ask you for a son, my Lord? Why would you grant me a child for whom I never asked, only to let him die in my arms?”

Later that Wednesday, a friend told me that she had recently heard a devotional that reminded her of me. I bet you can't guess what it was about.

Yep, you guessed it! Elisha and the Shunammite woman. This season of Lent was beginning much differently than I had planned. God was trying to get my attention in a big way.

So, what was I to make of all of this? Was I the Shunammite woman? If so, what exactly did God want from me? He had already taken David. What more did He want?

I began to feel like the rich man who came to Jesus asking, "What good thing must I do to obtain eternal life?” It was as if Jesus himself was looking right at me and saying, "If you wish to be complete, [give your children to me], and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." And I was full of grief because I did not think that I could give Jesus what He was asking me to give. Matthew 19:16-22.

You see, for me, it was not really my material possessions that I was idolizing, but my children. And who, but God himself, was going to chastise me for idolizing my children? Probably no one.

I began to realize that I had become a hoarder of blessings, namely my boys. I had been holding on to my children with fists clenched tight, begging God not to take them from me. Just like the Shunammite woman, I had been crying out to God, “No, my Lord! Please don’t disappoint me!”

I was believing a lie.

I had been telling myself that I could not have joy if God ever chose to take these blessings from me. I did not believe that every river that needed to flow for the joy of my soul would flow from Jesus. I did not trust that I would never, ever have to look anywhere else because His rivers are as many as the soul needs that I have. ~John Piper

And so, this Easter, my fists are beginning to open. With God's help, I am opening my hands to release my will to receive His. I am learning to trust that the water He has given will never dry up, for He is the source of endless streams.

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:11

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
John 7:37–38