The Sustaining Power of God: Is Grace Really Sufficient?

This article, is in part, a testimony to the sustaining power of God. It will make reference to a barren woman in the Bible, but also, I will share part of my experience as a "barren" woman". I know some have been wondering why Song of the Barren seemed to have fallen into nonexistence for a while, and what you are about to read will explain some of that. Please bear with me, as this will be my very first time disclosing this piece of myself, and it is not at all an easy task. This article will be looking at the Shunamite woman. This is a very familiar passage of scripture that tends to be the text for many sermons (I've even preached from it myself).

We understand that the passage begins by saying that there was a great woman in the city of Shunam. We can also see that she has taken an interest in the ministry of the prophet Elisha, seeing that she invited him consistently to dine in her home each time he came into the city. We see that she is insightful and has some ability to discern when she suggests to her husband that the couple build an additional wing onto their home for the prophet's lodging based on her perception that he was a "holy man of God". Everything about her exemplifies class, strength, intelligence, and assertiveness. She has the ability to recognize godly characteristics and had a great understanding of the concept of blessing the men and women of God in her environment in order to be pleasing to God. She had excellent negotiating capabilities and seemed to be a wonderful example of the "ideal" woman of God. However, something was wrong with her. Something was missing. Something very important and vital to her status as a woman in her day and time. She was barren.

What a terrible weakness for a woman of her character and status to have. For the women in our day and time, we tend to present ourselves as invincible. Nothing can harm us or take away from what we have worked so hard to accomplish. We are mothers, sisters, employees and employers. We are supervisors and entrepreneurs, owners of property and anything else we set our minds to. We have countless accomplishments and even more aspirations for the future, but it is only our "barren" state that reminds us of our dependence on God for everything that we do. This woman could have purchased whatever she wanted, gone wherever she pleased, and done anything she purposed to do for the Kingdom of God, but none of her money could purchase her the feeling of a full womb. She could not negotiate her way into becoming pregnant. This was something that completely had to be accomplished by the power of God and that alone. The amazing thing to me was that she took such painstaking efforts and went above and beyond anything that she had to do in order to bless the man of God in spite of her being absent of the one thing that she wanted more than anything else in life. This woman reminds me of myself in so many ways, it is hard to even describe. During the winter months, my mind began to dwell on the things that I could not change in my life, such as my marital status, and my financial situation. Stress lead to physical illness, resulting in the diagnosis of a life-long condition for which medicine would be needed for the duration of life.

This only lead to more depression and resulted in a prescription for antidepressant medication. It took everything within me to get up in the morning, and just as much effort to get to sleep at night. The amazing thing about it was that through all of the pain, both physical and emotional, I managed to continue coming to church, never missing a service. I continued to serve my leaders and the church as I had always done. I was still dependable and predictable, leading praise and worship every service with no one knowing that I had cried all the way to church, and would cry for the duration of the return trip home. Even the smallest task took the greatest effort, but I remained faithful to my duties and responsibilities. I still worked every day, cooked meals and did whatever I was called upon to do. What kept me coming to God during that time? What kept me lifting my hands and crying tears of worship and grief all at the same time? I'm so glad you asked.

Let us take a look at our example. She continued to be very dutiful in service despite the agony of not having the one thing that would have made her seem worth anything in the eyes of those in her environment. Why? Why did she not just give up, throw in the towel and quit serving God so faithfully? I call it the "but if not" motivation factor. Everyone remembers the three Hebrew friends of Daniel and how they were told that they would be thrown into the furnace for refusing to bow and pray to an idol god. When they received the warning, they responded that they had faith and knew that their God was able to deliver them out of the hand of the King. However they made a statement that exemplifies a person whose trust really is in God. They said they knew the Lord would bring them out, "but if not", they knew that it would not be due to a lack of ability on God's part. This expresses their faith to the point that even if it looked like they would never be delivered, they served a God that was able to bring them out. I had a desire for things that were not within the timing and thoughts of God, and for that reason, I was depressed. But through it all, I knew that there was no one else to turn to, no one else to negotiate with. There was no one who could do this for me but God Himself. My spirit kept reminding me that even if God did not do it, he was still the only one who could, and for that I owed Him continued service for the rest of my life.

The other reason is what I call the "just in case" reason. Just in case God ever suddenly changed His mind about giving me what I so desperately wanted, I would have everything in place. I would not have anything left undone, but would have served Him as best I could for the duration of my life. In much the same way, the Shunammite woman served God through His prophet Elisha and did so faithfully. Maybe God would see this labor of love and finally open her womb. Just in case, she would surpass any expectations and pull out all of the stops for this man of God. Elisha, being the perceptive individual that he was, picked up on a desire, a need, something having to be done for her in return for her generosity toward him and his servant. When his servant finally told him what was missing from this woman's life, he immediately spoke it into her womb and prophesied that she would embrace a son. What a joyous experience for her to be told such great news. God had seen all of her endeavors and finally was going to open up her womb to allow her to be what made any woman anything, a child. Surely she would have been happy, full of praise, excited about what the Lord was about to do. So her answer only leads me to one conclusion. She had heard this before. If I had a dollar for every "husband" prophesy I have received since my divorce, I would probably be very rich by now. The first few times were very exciting, and caused me to wait in expectation, peeping around every corner for the man of God that was being sent just for me.

About the fifth time, I was still hopeful, but beginning to grow anxious about the blessing that was taking longer than had been expected to arrive. By the tenth time, I began to grow sad and wondered if I was doing something wrong. Why does God keep telling me what He is going to do and not sending any other indication of it coming any time soon? I went deeper into prayer, beseeching God to bring about a manifestation of what He kept promising over and over again. Eventually, the confusion and anxiety turned to bitterness and resentment toward God for teasing me, playing with my emotions and stringing me along. It was cruel of Him to keep dangling something that I wanted so badly in front of my eyes, just close enough to be outside of my reach. I began to accuse the Lord's prophets of presumption and believed that some of them were just liars. I was at the same point that this Shunammite woman was. Please do not lie to me. I had made up my mind that I had no other choice but to serve God whether He ever brought my desire to pass, so there was no need for the empty promises and pity prophesies. At this point, I would have expected a dialogue to go on between the woman and the prophet. You know, he was supposed to question why she doubted, she was supposed to tell him why. He was supposed to encourage her to believe, she was supposed to believe. But the Bible records no further conversation regarding the matter.

The very next sentence simply informs us that "she conceived". What does that mean? Yes, we understand that physically, she conceived and a baby was now growing in her womb, but what really happened? At that moment, there was a desperation so great. There was a dependence on God that was so full and complete that there was no possibility of God holding out on this woman any longer. Up until this point, she had been controlling everything that she could, trying to pretend that it didn't bother her to see the other women in the city with their children following them, acting like she did not hurt when her husband's friends boasted of their children and her husband, in his older age had none to speak of. Doing the Lord's work is the perfect cover for business, the perfect camouflage for the real struggle happening beneath the surface. Thank God for being able to peel back all of those layers and reveal what we really are. At this very moment, this Shunammite woman, the picture of strength and independence in this one statement, totally surrendered to God. She wasn't calling the man of God a liar. She knew he was a true man of God, but rather she was admitting that she did not have the strength to listen to this promise again and walk away empty. I know I've felt that way. After being angry at everyone and everything, the anger turned to grief and the grief to a sweet surrender that said, "God, I cannot handle walking away from another prophesy without knowing that this thing is really going to happen. " Have you ever been there? I couldn't go to another bridal shower, another wedding, another baby shower, and cover the hurt from not being able to celebrate these occasions in my own life. I couldn't listen to another friend talk about her engagement, her boyfriend, or her newborn baby without wanting to burst into tears for my own emptiness. I was tired of smiling and being happy for everyone else, and I was tired of what seemed like endless empty promises about it. It was at that point that I did the only thing that was left to do. I told God about it. I admitted that I no longer had the ability to handle it on my own. I confessed that my finite mind did not understand why God seemed to be holding out on me and that although I loved and served Him with all I had, I was still hurting and I knew that He was the only one who could do anything about this pain. And that is when it happened. What happened? I conceived! No, not a physical baby, but a spiritual one. God revealed to me that He was not causing me pain for naught, but wanted me to channel the pain into something that could heal.

And out of that pain came the words that you are reading right now. God's sustaining power came. Did God miraculously allow my husband to walk through the door? Not yet, but He gave me something even more amazing. He gave me a strength that is not my own to overpower the hurt that was just about to overtake me. Do I still feel lonely? Sometimes, but it is not victorious over me. I would love for the man of God to fall from the sky right into my house with a ring and a plan, but until that does or does not happen, I have the ability to hold onto God and allow Him to hold me up until the promise is realized. My eyes fill with tears even as I write these words, but they quickly turn to tears of joy when I think of the tears that will be wiped away as a result of this labor of love. I asked a question in the title of this article and that is " Is grace really sufficient?". The answer to that question, my friends, is yes.