When God’s Promise Feels Dead

“About this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” (2 Kings 4:16)

The Shunammite woman stared at the prophet of God in disbelief. Her husband was old and she didn’t have any children. Could it really be true? But Elisha said God would give her a son. 

A year later she delivered a baby boy, just as God had promised. 

The child grew and started working with his father in the field. Until one day a servant brought the boy home to his mother because he was complaining his head hurt. By noon, the boy had died. 

The Lord’s promise lay dead in the mother’s lap. 

As I read this story in 2 Kings, I couldn’t help notice the mother’s faith. Her son, the Lord’s promise, was dead, yet she tells her husband “please send me a young man and a donkey that I may go to the man of God and come back. All is well.” (2 Kings 4:22-23)

She had such faith in God’s promise that even when the promise lay cold and dead she refused to count it as truth. Instead, she chose to believe her son would live again. 

Her faith led to action. Rather than sitting at home and weeping over her son, she immediately went to the only one she knew could restore God’s promise to her. 

She went to Elisha and reminded him of God’s promise, that she would have a son. She pleaded with him to come back with her and pray for the boy. Because of her faith, her son was raised back to life. God’s promise was restored to her. 

Another Dead Promise

Several hundred years later, another son born according to God’s promise lay dead by His mother’s feet. 

Jesus Christ. 

An angel promised Mary she would bear a Son even though it was physically impossible. This Son would save the world from their sins. 

That Son was born – at exactly the time God promised. 

He grew and started working in His Father’s field also. Until one day, He was betrayed by a friend and hung on a cross. 

The Lord’s promise once more lay dead at the feet of His mother. 

But this time there was no faith. Rather than believing Jesus own words that in 3 days He would rise from the dead, the mother mourned and buried her Son. 

The Difference Faith Makes 

I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between these two stories. Two mothers who naturally could not have children. Two promises that a son would be born. Two boys born according to God’s promise. Two deaths of the Lord’s promised son. 

And I couldn’t help notice one difference – the faith of the women. 

When God’s promise died, the Shunammite woman refused to accept it as truth. She went to God and pleaded for Him to make His word true and alive in her life once again. 

But when God’s promised Saviour died, they mourned. Even though He told them this would happen, and promised that He would rise again the third day, they didn’t believe Him. On the very day Jesus promised He would rise, the women went to the tomb to anoint His body with spices. 

Often, we respond to God’s promises the same way Mary and the disciples responded to the promise of Jesus resurrection – with doubt and disbelief. 

God has promised to give us wisdom if we ask for it. (James 1:5) But when He seems slow in responding, we give up and turn to other sources for the instant wisdom we crave. We’re disappointed that God didn’t come through for us, but we don’t cling to our Saviour, refusing any other wisdom, waiting only for that which He has promised. 

God has promised to deliver us from all unrighteousness and sin. (1 John 1:9) But when we’ve failed again the hundredth time and that promise seems dead, we doubt God’s word as true. We ignore that scripture and mourn our fate but we don’t go to God, reckoning His word as true for our life and pleading with Him to deliver us as He promised.  

What if instead of mourning, we believed? What if we believed that “He who promised is faithful?” (Hebrews 10:23) 

What if, like the Shunammite woman, we ran to Jesus and reminded Him of His promise? What if we refused to reckon the cold dead areas of our Christian life as truth and instead chose to believe that what God’s word says about us is true. 

When it feels like one of God’s promises are not being worked out in our life, we have the authority to relentlessly pursue God for the fulfillment of that promise. 

It’s not our faith

It’s important to know though that it’s not our faith that makes God’s word true. 

In both stories, God’s promise was realized. Jesus was raised from the dead not because anyone stood at the tomb on Easter Sunday and prayed that God would be faithful. He was raised because “if we are faithless, He remains faithful.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

But Jesus told His disciples “because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

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We must choose to believe God’s word as true even when our lives look and feel far from what God has said. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4) God’s truth is based not on feelings, or sight, but based on God’s unchanging nature as true God. 

Believe God’s word as true and walk with faith. Run to Him as the Shunammite woman ran to the prophet and ask for His promise to be alive in your life. Run to the tomb and wait for His promise to be fulfilled.