Make Room for Your Miracle (17 page)

“So this is the woman whose son Elisha restored,” Jezebel remarked. Her voice wrapped around us when she spoke, but it was more of a strangle than a comment. Her eyes drifted over me, taking in my figure and face with alarming interest. When she turned her gaze on Habakkuk I wanted to grab him and run from the court.

Habakkuk, on the other hand, seemed amused. He was watching Jezebel watch him.

There we were face to face. Two mothers and their sons. The daughter of Baal’s high priest with the king of Israel. The daughter of the God of Israel with a nobleman’s heir. The two seated in riches seemed to have every aspect of their lives secure. The two before them had nothing at all but their faith.

At the king’s request and fighting a tremor in my voice, I told how Jehovah had worked through Elisha and wrought His miracles in my life. Every time I mentioned Elisha I saw in the corner of my eye the queen’s look turn to stone. That reaction in her somehow gave me the sense that Elisha was still alive and still her enemy. I knew I would see him again. Inside I smiled and went on more boldly with our story, all the while determining how I would frame the request for which we had come.

The king questioned Habakkuk, prying for any hint of life beyond this realm and whether there was an afterward that burned with fire or torment. As if the boy would have been sentenced there!

Then Joram asked Habakkuk, “Have you anything else to tell me?”

“Yes, sire,” he said. “We have come to recover our estate.” I caught my breath at his assurance. He continued. “I am the rightful heir of my father’s lands, sire. I would take my mother home.”

I trembled with pride as he spoke. I had come to put myself at the mercy of this king in hopes he would grant my son’s inheritance and my security. But Habakkuk had asked for our estate himself! What future was in store for this son of mine?

King Joram turned to the scribe who sat silently on the side of the hall copiously writing down our account throughout the interview, from time to time looking at us with some wonderment.

“A letter and my seal,” Joram ordered.

The audience looked on eagerly.

Did they see me shiver slightly, waiting for the king’s decree? What would be the fate of the woman and her son who had given succor to the prophet who had both begun and ended the famine Israel had suffered?

“Write!” Joram told the scribe. “To the commander of the king’s militia: By order of Israel’s sovereign on this day the Shunammite and her son . . .”

I was suspended. In his next words our fate would be decided for us. I was still as a stone.

Then Joram raised his hand. “Shall have their entire estate restored! Seal it in my name.”

Gehazi’s eyes met mine. He was as amazed as I. The providence of my appearing had put him in good standing above whatever had gotten him this audience already. And his favor here had created opportunity for my request. I bowed my head acknowledging the history Gehazi shared with me, and together we marveled at the God of Israel.

“So you were in Philistia?” the king asked me as the scribe scribbled.

“We were, sire.”

“And how did you find it?”

“Not like Israel, sire. Not like Shunem.”

“How long was your sojourn, Shunammite?” Joram asked.

“Seven full years,” I told him.

Jezebel smiled. “How providential for you,” she said quietly. Her teeth glinted smooth and white between tinted lips. “The length of the famine here.”

Joram laughed.

“And your providence continues, noblewoman,” he said. “I shall repay you for the use of your land and house.” He called his commander to his side. “The king’s treasury shall reimburse the noblewoman’s estate for these seven years. And you shall order an escort to see her and her son safely back to Shunem with their goods.”

Our land and houses and seven years’ lease!

The audience of the court clapped and remarked at the king’s generosity and righteousness. The commander bowed while I saw stars and willed my knees to stand firm. The first miracle that God had wrought for me had in turn wrought a second and now a third: the restoration of all that we had lost. The son I had embraced would embrace his inheritance. We would return to possess it with repayment from the king’s treasury restoring the house and land as it had been in its finest day.

How I wished Joktan had lived to see this.

Our son spoke once more, squaring his shoulders to take up the responsibility his father had left him. “Thank you, sire,” he said with a bow. He turned to the queen. “Thank you, lady.”

Then he turned to me. “Mother,” he said, “let’s go home.”

In the days that would come Elisha would hear of our return and come by Shunem. He would stay on our rooftop in the room we had made for him, the room of miracles. We would exchange our tales of all that had occurred. Elisha would watch Habakkuk grow and one day bless his marriage, and I would see my grandchildren.

Within the year King Joram would meet his end at the hands of his successor, Jehu, as prophesied by Elisha. It would occur in the very vineyard King Ahab stole from Naboth. Likewise Jezebel would meet her end, as would her daughter queen in Judah. For a time there would be turning away from Baal and back to the God of Israel.

There would be a generation and another and another after to fill the house in Shunem where a room had once been built upon the roof for the servant of the Lord. We had welcomed the Lord’s anointed, and the Lord had returned our hospitality! We had provided a place of security for His messenger to come to rest, and God had opened my barren womb. We had lived lives of service for His messenger, and God had sent His breath to raise our son from death. We had set a table for His messenger, and God had made provision for us in the midst of our enemies during famine. We had given His messenger a seat of honor, and God had given me a place before kings.

We made room for Him. He made miracles for us.

And We Listen . . .

What a coincidence! Here is Gehazi telling the king about the Shunammite’s miracles just when she and her son walk in from a seven-year sojourn! What could the king do but look at this boy who was twelve or thirteen years old now and say, “This is the child who was created in a barren womb and then raised from the dead? Okay, here is your inheritance. Take back your house, your land and, by the way, we’ll pay you back rent for the past seven years.”

Do you see the possibilities when you make room for the Presence? She was barren . . . her only child dead . . . facing the ravages of famine . . . her property confiscated. Yet all her needs were met.

We often focus on a particular concern and say, “I need a breakthrough here,” whereas the Lord wants us to understand something more. Yes, He wants us to have that miracle, but if we stop there we will miss out. When we make room for the Presence, the balm of Gilead comes down and brings revival glory for
every
need. As carriers of the glory, we learn that one miracle is the seed for many others. Let us say it again:
A miracle
from God is so magnificent each one contains within itself the life
and seed for many other miracles!

This is an important biblical principle: As we are faithful with what He gives us, He often gives us more. The more you have fellowship with Jesus, the more you are in tune with His miracle power. It is like any of the gifts. You do not walk around thinking,
I need to have a word of knowledge.
It will just be there. The same Presence who gives discernment and prophecies and words of knowledge is not limited to one miracle.

Go Higher

The Shunammite walked in that realm of possibility. She was not thrown by each new storm. In this part of her story she returned after seven years to find her security taken over by others. There were strange people living in her house, working her land. What do they say to her? Go to the king.

What does this say to us? Go up higher.

Now here is something about going up higher: It is not about getting more complicated, more difficult, more ethereal. It is not secret knowledge. It is not for the anointed few who “really get it.” The higher you go in God, the simpler things become. The anointing should be simple enough for a child to understand. In this season, the Lord is restoring the double-portion anointing to the Church. John tells us in Revelation that he saw a new thing. The message was, “Come up, come up higher. I want to show you something.” Now it is time for the Church—in our equipping and in our operation—to go to the next level.

The Church is Elisha in this hour. Elisha asked for and received a double portion of the anointing of his mentor, Elijah. Just so, we inherit from Jesus the double-portion anointing, and this enables us to breathe the living word over dead things, as Elisha did. Jesus has told us to go into all the world and preach Good News. You are His emissary, carrying the word by which the barren become fruitful and the dead things around are resurrected. He wants you to be a vessel of the double portion.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, there is blessing. Your children will come home, your debts will be paid. It will be like the year of jubilee in the Bible. Many nations desperately need God to restore them. In a sense, if we do not seek revival through repentance, our children will be held in bondage to debt and loss of morality and the death of hope. Those who will not steward the double portion, who reject it and go to other gods, are going to wither. They are going to be barren, physically, economically, socially. Where the double portion is not welcome, oppression will be the outcome. The Western nations are seeing this. But there is a remedy. Wherever we welcome the name of Jesus and make room for the Holy Spirit, we will see resurrection and restoration. We will see miracles plus.

Miracles Plus

Just a few weeks ago I, Mahesh, got a desperate phone call from a pastor who is a close friend. He told me that a dear teenager in his church was in physical crisis. Her liver was failing and she was dying. A liver transplant was only a very remote possibility. He asked if I possibly had a word from the Lord about this situation.

In intercession I entered the glory, the
shekinah
, on behalf of that family and the pastor who loved them. The thick Presence of glory is almost like a bubble. Through the blood of Jesus we are allowed to enter into the double portion. Often, when we find ourselves in the midst of a challenge, we are put there to change the equation. We can enter that Presence and bring the vibration of the glory into the situation around us.

So I entered into that realm and stayed, I think, about 26 hours. I was still going about my daily business, but my spirit was engaged in the activity of heaven. I was plugged into Him, honoring His Presence and carrying this precious girl before His throne. Suddenly I emerged, and when I came out, I was with the Lord. I heard Him say,
It is done. Phone the family.
I picked up the phone and told the pastor, “It is done. The Lord said she is out of the crisis now.”

The next day the doctors told the family, “This is a miracle. We don’t know what changed, but she is going to live. She doesn’t need a liver transplant.”

Here is the thing about miracles plus. When I came out of that realm of glory, I had not only the word for her healing, but also the knowledge of the purpose that God had for her life. I told her mother to tell her daughter what the Lord had shown me about her life. This young girl had been in a lot of confusion, a crisis in her soul. In the glory was God’s definition for her life and purpose. I was able to say, “This and this are her destiny.”

We bless doctors. They are our friends, not enemies. But just because a doctor makes a grim diagnosis does not mean you are to accept it. You are there to change the equation, to change the atmosphere. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we can bring forth the Presence of the Holy Spirit, the
shekinah
glory, and it changes everything.

So we enter that realm not just for one miracle, the healing, but for miracles plus. It is like Hannah’s story. She was praying for a child, but God had something more for her. Often we pray, “Lord, please heal me in this area,” but God wants us to go beyond stage one to stage two, stage three, stage four and five. Not only did God want to give Hannah an answer to her barrenness, but also He wanted to supply Israel with a prophet, Samuel. Through her miracle child, the whole nation was blessed. In her was the seed of literally hundreds of miracles.

And think of Mary. The conception of Jesus was a miracle, and, in turn, miracles plus, for the whole sum total of all of time and place cannot contain the miracles that have and will come forth through that Child.

Whatever is coming from the Word, pick it up, enter it. The words
I am the Lord that healeth thee
, for instance, contain a whole galaxy. You can enter them and find healings for diabetes, healings for paralysis, healings for autism, healings for different kinds of cancers. The Church needs to get back into that place where we honor the Word of God. When we pray, God wants to answer our immediate problems. But He also wants to meet certain needs of the Kingdom through the answer to that prayer. He wants to give us miracles plus. We are His ambassadors of heaven. We can enter His Presence and carry a vibration of His glory that changes every equation. Ask God to help you have greater vision. You can emerge out of your trial better than you ever were, more anointed than you ever were. Just stay in the glory. God wants to take you in that situation from glory to glory.

Power in the Glory

The more you love Jesus, the more you will recognize the glory of the Lord. This glory, the thick Presence of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, gets thicker and thicker in your life as you grow in intimacy with Jesus, loving and adoring Him. There is power in the glory as it is energized by the breath of God. It depends on the deep inside of you connecting with the deep of the Lord. If you receive it, deep calls unto deep and there is an explosion of miracle power. As we behold the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed from glory to glory. God is transforming us. He is taking us from one level, wherever we are, to another level of glory.