Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion written for Devotionals Daily by Robert J. Morgan, author of The Origin of Hymns: It Is Well with My Soul. The Origin of Hymns is a written and visual complement to the critically acclaimed movie, I Can Only Imagine 2.
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The captivating hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul,” pulls at our hearts whenever we sing it. Even more when we know its background! Horatio Spafford wrote the words amid the anguish of losing his four daughters in a shipwreck. The music was penned by Philip Bliss, who later perished alongside his wife in a trainwreck. I recount these stories in my books, The Origin of Hymns and Then Sings My Soul.
How incredible that a hymn framed by twin disasters should exalt the phrase, It Is Well!
Would it surprise you to know a tragedy in a Bible story inspired the words, “It is well”? Those words were first spoken, not by Spafford or Bliss, but by an Old Testament woman whose son had just died.
It’s the Bible story of seven sneezes.
The Shunammite Woman
The prophet Elisha was a miracle worker. He took up Elijah’s mantle in the book of 2 Kings and continued the elder prophet’s ministry of performing wonders, which underscored the authority of his sermons. He traveled about, calling on the nation of Israel and its leaders to repent.
In his preaching circuit, Elisha occasionally came to the town of Shunem, a village in the fertile Jezreel Valley. To this day, the Jezreel Valley is the breadbasket for Israel. It’s also known as the Valley of Armageddon, but in the days of the Shunammite woman, it was a prosperous agricultural region. The woman and her husband were wealthy landowners and farmers.
According to 2 Kings 4, Elisha showed up in Shunem in his itinerant ministry, and this couple there provided food and accommodations. The husband appears to be gruff and somewhat older, but the woman was full of energy and devoted to God. She persuaded her husband to build a small room on the roof of their home that Elisha could use whenever he ministered in the area. She made sure it was furnished with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand.
Those are the things I need when I’m traveling. A bed for sleeping; a chair for sitting; a desk for studying; and a lamp for light. Elisha loved his small room, and one day he decided to repay the couple for their kindness. The Lord impressed him to tell the woman that she and her husband, who had never had children, would be blessed with a little boy—a miracle baby.
And that’s what happened. The couple had a beautiful baby who grew to be a happy lad. He brought endless joy to his mother. But an unexpected tragedy befell the family. One day when the boy was working alongside his father in the fields, he seemed to have a heatstroke, or something similar. He said, “My head, my head!”
The boy’s dad, perhaps not thinking the boy was seriously ill, had the servants carry him back to the house where he lay in his mother’s arms until noon. Then he died.
We often wonder why the Lord allows children to die, marriages to fail, illnesses to befall us, and troubles to assail us. I don’t have a full index of answers, but I know the same sorrows befell God’s people in olden times. In studying the stories of biblical heroes, I can learn some lessons for myself.
The Shunammite woman didn’t sit around grieving. She went into action, asking the servants to saddle a donkey and harness a cart. Leather straps snapped, ropes tightened, and within moments the donkey was hitched to the cart. This woman was going to track down the prophet Elisha.
That’s when we have the first occurrence of the phrase immortalized in Spafford’s hymn. When her husband asked her why she was running off to find Elisha, she answered with three words:
It is well. — 2 Kings 4:23 NKJV
Even in the midst of sorrow, this woman knew enough about the God of Elisha, and her God, to know He was in control. She had no choice but to trust Him.
The story continues. The Shunammite woman traveled as fast as she could to Elisha’s home on Mount Carmel, telling her servant, “Do not slacken the pace unless I tell you.”
From his vantage point on the mountain, Elisha saw her in the distance, and he sent his aide, Gehazi, to meet her and to ask, “Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?”
Gehazi took off and intercepted her with those questions. She replied as she had earlier answered her husband, with those three words: “It is well.”
Notice that the phrases, “Is it well” and “It is well” occur five times in this passage.
On a visceral human level, of course, it was not well at all. Her son was lying cold and lifeless in that little home in Shumen. I’ve been with parents when their children have passed away, and the scene is heartrending. I never get those moments out of my mind. Nothing is well in those moments, and yet, in Christ, we realize that, in the eternal mercy and grace of our omnipotent God, it is well.
This woman knew her God. She knew He was aware and that He had a plan. She knew He was in control, whatever happened. She didn’t know the outcome of her case, but she did know there is a God in Heaven who makes all things right in the lives of those who love Him. So she could honestly have the attitude that says, “It is well, though sorrows like sea billows roll. It is well, though Satan should buffet and trials arise.”
You and I have the same set of biblical promises she had, and we have even more promises because we have all the subsequent books of the Bible, with all their verses and all their truths and all their reassurances and all their promises.
Her confidence that “It is well” did not remove the throbbing pain she felt. The passage continues, “Now when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, ‘Let her alone; for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me, and has not told me.’”
When Elisha learned of the boy’s death, he immediately left with the woman, traveling to Shunem. The passage continues,
When Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed. He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became warm. He returned and walked back and forth in the house, and again went up and stretched himself out on him; then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. And he called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her. And when she came in to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” So she went in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground; then she picked up her son and went out. — 2 Kings 4:32-37
When I was a boy, the dime store in our town had a little display with gags and magic tricks. One of the products was a little packet of sneezing powder. I think I bought some and tried it on myself to see what would happen. But in this story, the Lord just sprinkled some sneezing power on the boy’s nose, as it were, and in this way the boy was raised from the dead.
And some people say God has no sense of humor!
Notice the intensity with which Elisha prayed. He went into his upper chamber and shut the door. It reminds me of Matthew 6:6, when Jesus said,
But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
Elisha didn’t know that verse, for it hadn’t been given; but he knew the habit. The hospitality room became a hospital room; the place of relaxation became a place of intense intercession. Elisha literally stretched himself out on this hopeless problem; and he prayed as earnestly as he knew how, with great intensity and unction and earnestness.
At length he saw a little progress, but the answer was not forthcoming. Elisha got up from the bed, paced back and forth, clearing his mind and mustering his strength, and then he stretched himself out again and literally poured his life into the situation through the medium of prayer. He was chest to chest, arm to arm, leg to leg, and mouth to mouth. At last, the breakthrough was achieved and the answer came in the form of seven sneezes.
There are some problems that require intense prayer, earnest, agonizing, and perhaps exhausting. James 5:16 says,
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much.
There are some times when we wrestle with the Lord in prayer.
But there’s one final thing about this story—Great people have great hope. Look at the ending of the story: Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” When she came, he said, “Take your son.” The woman came in and fell at the prophet’s feet in thanksgiving and was reunited with her son.
Some time ago, I was sitting beside a young man named Mario on an air flight. He was a graduate law student in Canada, and was reading one of Dan Brown’s novels, so it was easy to begin talking to him about The Da Vinci Code, which he had read with great interest. From there I was able to bring up the whole issue of the credibility of Christianity.
In the course of our conversation, Mario said, “I have one problem with Christianity. It involves dead people coming to life again, and we know that’s a medical impossibility. I have real problems with the whole idea of resurrection.”
I said, “No you don’t.” He looked at me in surprise and said, “Yes I do.”
“No, truly you don’t,” I said, “You have a problem with the concept of God. Once you admit to the possibility of God, then the problem of resurrection goes away; because the very nature of the definition of the word God implies the ability to do the supernatural and to perform the unexpected. If there is a God, then for sure He can raise the dead if He wants to, or else He wouldn’t be God at all. Being God, He can do whatever He wants. If there is a God, He can raise the dead. If there is no God, there is no resurrection. Your problem is not with the concept of resurrection, but with the concept of God.”
My friend said, “Well, I’d never thought of that before.” I had an opportunity to explain the Gospel and plant the seed of Jesus in Mario’s mind. This is the biblical perspective. The apostle Paul made exactly that point in Acts 26:8 (NIV) when he said,
Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
The central resurrection in the Bible, of course, is that of Jesus of Nazareth who rose from the dead on Easter Sunday in the Garden Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The entire Bible, both in its narratives and in its theology, revolves around this one central event. It’s because of Easter Sunday that we can sing, “It is well with my soul.”
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we have a scattering of resurrection stories. I believe God gave these to us to show us that He can, does, and will raise His children physically and bodily from death to life everlasting.
Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. He said, “Because I live, you will live also.”
We aren’t great because of fame or fortune; our greatness is simply due to the fact that we have a great Savior. He died on Calvary’s cross for our sins, He rose on the third day, He ascended into Heaven, He is sitting on the right hand of the Father, and He is coming one day soon with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.
And that is why we can sing:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Watch the I Can Only Imagine 2 Movie Trailer
Written for Devotionals Daily by Robert J. Morgan, author of The Origin of Hymns: It Is Well with My Soul, copyright Robert J. Morgan.
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Your Turn
Do you have great hope? Do you have hope enough to wrestle in prayer fervently? Even in the midst of sorrow, do you know enough about God to know that He is in control? Trust Him! And, watch and be inspired by I Can Only Imagine 2! ~ Devotionals Daily