信仰の手引き（英語・English）
The Woman of Wives of the Sons of the Prophets
投稿者
goodnews
投稿日
2023-03-10 20:11
閲覧数
157
Why Does God Give Us Suffering?
God loves people. Therefore, He sent Jesus into the world to bear the sins of the world. But why is there so much hardship and suffering in this world? If there is a God, He should only make people happy, why does He have to allow suffering?
If people live happily and prosper, they should thank God and trust and depend on Him more, but actually, they don’t. When people become wealthy and comfortable, their hearts become arrogant and they often distance themselves from God. That is why God allows people to suffer, but the Bible says that it is not His true intention.
“For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” (Lamentations 3:33)
Allowing human suffering and hardship is the work to humble their hearts and have them return to God.
The Unbelieving Woman of Wives of the Sons of the Prophets
2 Kings chapter 4 in the Bible tells the story of a certain woman. The woman met a good man, married him, and had two sons. Her husband had a sincere faith and loved God deeply. On the contrary, her heart was far from God. The woman’s husband wanted to serve God more, so he made up his mind to become one of the sons of the prophet Elisha. The woman, along with her two sons, had to follow her husband to the school of the prophets. She naturally became a wife of the sons of the prophet, but even there she was not interested in learning faith.
One day, her husband fell ill and unfortunately passed away. How great would it have been if at that time the woman had turned her heart toward believing in God and learning faith. But her heart was far from God so she only felt sad that her husband had died and resented him for leaving her and their two sons behind.
Two Sons at Risk of Being Taken Away
Eventually, the woman of wives of the sons of the prophets left the school of the prophets. She thought in order to raise her two sons well she needed to earn money, but she didn’t have any so she went into debt and started a business. However, she could not make any money and her debts continued to grow. She later became tormented by her debtors because she could not pay her debts, and was put in a situation that her two sons were about to be taken away as slaves. She left the school of the prophets to raise her two sons well, but was about to lose them.
It was then that she realized that she had no way out of her difficulties. So, she remembered God and thought of the prophet Elisha, a man of God.
The Woman of Wives of the Sons of the Prophets Who Went to the Prophet
When the woman went to prophet Elisha and told him her story, prophet Elisha asked,
“What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house?”
“Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil.”
A pot of oil, in her opinion, could not solve her difficulties. But Elisha, the servant of God, had a different thought. Because Elisha had experienced God countless times, he thought a pot of oil would be more than enough to solve her problem.
“Go, borrow vessels abroad of all your neighbors, even empty vessels, but borrow a lot, not a few. Then go in the house with your two sons, shut the door and pour out into all those vessels, you shall set aside that which is full.”
The woman followed the instructions of prophet Elisha and went to borrow vessels. The house was full of empty vessels, and she and her two sons began pouring oil into them. Not long after, all the borrowed vessels were full of oil. The woman, again led by prophet Elisha, was able to sell the oil to pay her debts and keep her two sons. Also, she had enough to live with the rest.
God Wants Us to Live by Faith
Many people say that God lives, but it is not easy to live by faith in Him because they can’t see Him and He doesn’t bring sacks of money in difficult times. So, even if they hear and know about God, rather than relying on Him, they rely on money and choose humanistic ways.
In order to live by faith, we must believe in the invisible God. To believe in God, we must experience Him by reading the Bible and accepting the words of the Bible by faith, and be closer to God by gaining those experiences one by one.
God wanted the wife of the sons of the prophets to live by faith in Him. To have her live that life, He blocked all the humanistic ways before giving her the line to be connected with Him. When the woman of wives of the sons of the prophets realized that fact and came to God, He opened a new way for her. I am thankful to God who works for her, and for us.
