Who Do You Trust? (2 Kings 4:39-41)


One of the young men went out into the field to gather herbs and came back with a pocketful of wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into the pot without realizing they were poisonous. 40 Some of the stew was served to the men. But after they had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Man of God, there’s poison in this stew!” So they would not eat it. Elisha said, “Bring me some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now it’s all right; go ahead and eat.” And then it did not harm them. (2 Kings 4:41 NLT)

The prophet Elisha was an interesting character in Scripture, almost like an Old Testament super hero with unexplainable powers that ordinary humans couldn't understand. On one occasion, as he and his companions were sitting down to eat, they quickly realized that the new cook's "wild gourd stew" had a secret ingredient: poisonous wild gourds. 

As the men were freaking out once they realized they were only minutes from certain death, they called on the prophet-hero Elisha to save the day. Elisha quickly assesses the situation with his prophetic super human powers. He quickly reaches in his prophet utility belt and grabs a bag of flour? 

He leaps forward, casting the flour into the pot, landing safely on the ground in a ninja roll. He stands up and says, "Eat up. It's all good!" 

Really? Just like that? Are you seriously suggesting that the solution to being cured of poisonous stew is for me to ingest more poisonous stew with a dash of flour?" Hey Elisha, I got a better suggestion. How about you give this special recipe of yours a little taste test before the rest of us keel over?

The reality is that we all have trust issues. Sometimes it's even hard trusting God. But even when we do trust God, we find it difficult to trust the people who claim to be acting on God's behalf, and usually with good reason. 

So what do we do?

We trust. 

We pray, we discern, and we choose to trust in the God who is bigger than our circumstances and who holds the outcome of our faith securely in his grip. Whether God's servants are trustworthy or not, when our faith is in Him we will not be shaken, despite how gifted or flaky they really are.

Ultimately God honors faith because it's necessary in order to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). God honored the faith of those who trusted in Elisha because they believed in Him and trusted His power to deliver them. Today God will honor us when we choose to trust Him despite the plethora of questionable "servants of God" out there.

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