It is Well

It Is Well

2 Kings 4:26

26 Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’” And she answered, “All is well.”

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

“It is well, it is well with my soul.

Horatio Spafford

In November 1873 Horatio Spafford received a telegram that would forever change his life. His wife Anna and four daughters had been on their way to England for a time of rest and evangelistic work with D.L. Moody. Spafford was to meet them later.

However, the ship his wife and daughters were on was struck by another ship and sank. Spafford received word from his wife. The message, “saved alone”. At 45 Horatio’s business was in shambles, his only son had died at four as the result of scarlet fever, and now his four daughters had likewise gone to heaven. He was devastated.

Spafford immediately boarded a ship to join his wife in mourning. Eventually, the ship Spafford had boarded for England passed directly over the spot at which his own daughters had drowned. It was then that he retreated to his cabin and wrote:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

“It is well, it is well with my soul.

Spafford by every right would have been allowed to be a broken man. Every sympathetic Christian ear and heart would have excused, whatever actions he took and “understood” with grace.

Yet, it was into this situation that Spafford wrote one of the greatest Christian Hymns of all time. Following with the refrain:

It is well with my soul,

It is well, it is well with my soul.

The instinct of Spafford is the same instinct that we see in the account of 2 Kings 4:26. A passage recording the actions of the Shunamite woman, who at the death of her only son, sought out the prophet Elisha, hoping beyond hope that the word of God would revive her lost dreams of a future filled with the joy of the one she loved.

What is it that the Shunamite woman shows us about hope? Charles Spurgeon notes on this that, “This good Shunammite was asked by Gehazi, whether it was well with herself. She was mourning over a lost child, and yet she said, ‘It is well;’ she felt that the trial would surely be blessed.” What a statement of faith we see in this woman. The question seems to come to us as well; is it well with us? Is it well with our souls?

An interesting note in such a discussion of this continues to be found in the words of Spafford. Who wrote further while on his English bound ship:

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

For us, it is always well. Why? Because Christ has regarded us and gone to the cross for our sins. What faith it must have taken for an Old Testament figure such as the Shunamite to trust in such miracles as she eventually saw?

For the Shunamite the hope of resurrection was just a hope, yet to us Christ has shown it possible. Should we trust in the sufficiency of what He has done for us by the blood of the cross. The question seems for us; when we are buffeted by the attacks of the Devil, can we like the Shunamite (and Spafford) say, “It is well with my soul”.

Prayer

LORD, let me rest in the truth that it is well with my soul. Let me trust in the magnificent Gospel. That you Christ came to earth, fully God and fully man. Yet, you lived a sinless life and took my sin to a cross you did not deserve. Let me see and live in light of that, that I can be forgiven of my sins, and that like you I will one day too be well in the presence of my God in heaven.

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From The Desk of Pastor Jason Filbert

Cypress Bible Fellowship

Naples, FL