The Recovery of Faith

Last year, we had a large oak tree in our backyard break in half during a storm. Sadly, this tree needed to be taken down as the damage was too severe. I couldn't do it on my own because of the size of the tree, so we had a company come and take the rest down and haul it away. It was far costlier than I initially imagined, but now I know why…It’s a hard job with lots of back-breaking labor. I have a large amount of respect for Elisha’s school for prophets which had prospered enough that they needed to partake in a building expansion project. However, this story reveals that they didn’t hire out a company to do the work for them; they got to work themselves. They went into the woods, cut down logs, and took them back to enlarge their facility. Everything was going well until a particular student's axhead flew off and landed in the Jordan River. Thankfully, Elisha was there and performed a miracle where he makes the ax head float. In 2 Kings 6:6-7 it says, “When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. ‘Lift it out,’ he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.” On the surface, this seems like a small, insignificant miracle. But what it teaches us is that God cares about the small stuff of life—lost axheads, lost keys, lost glasses, lost phones—the little things that cause us to fret. Sometimes He restores to us what was lost, but sometimes He doesn’t. Yet even in those moments, He understands and comforts us in our distress. How does it make you feel to know God cares about the lost things of the world? How does it make you feel to know that God cares about you? Where do you find comfort in the words to that old hymn, “I once was lost, but now am found…”? My prayer for us as we gather together this week either in person or online is that we will know the depth of the love of God for us and we will know that, “the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”