“The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to meet.” And he said, “Go.” Then one of them said, “Won’t you please come with your servants?” “I will,” Elisha replied. And he went with them. They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water. “Oh no, my lord!” he cried out. “It was borrowed!” The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” 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.” (2 Kings 6:1-7)
This story from 2 Kings may be one you don’t hear often, but it’s full of takeaways you didn’t know you needed, until you sit back and realize what God is trying to open your eyes to. It’s such a simple story, of Elisha and the prophets working together to build a new meeting place when one man loses a borrowed axe head, so Elisha throws a stick in the water causing the axe head to float. The end, right? Wrong. I was blown away by how much I needed to be reminded of God’s “simple” miracles in my own life!
I’ll start with a story of a ring that was left to me by my great grandmother, and given to me by my mom when I was 16. Thinking I was mature enough to take care of it, I wore it daily. But then, I lost the ring at a PennDel youth convention that I attended with my youth group. Prayers to find it went unanswered, until one day when I found a quarter while I was cleaning. Since I planned on putting the quarter into my change jar, I dropped it into my pocket in the meantime, and when I did, I heard the sound of metal hitting metal. To my surprise, there was a hole in the pocket of my shorts. But the hole didn’t cause the quarter to fall out, rather the hole led into the lining of the shorts. Without remembering, I had put the ring into the pocket of these shorts and it had fallen through the pocket to the lining of the shorts. When I dropped the quarter in, it did the same thing, hitting the metal of the ring. Prayers answered! So if you need a reminder that God cares for the small things, this is it. But often, I feel like I am a bother to the Lord when I bring my small concerns to Him. After all, there are people with real issues, so why should I be praying for a missing ring? Because He cares! He wants so desperately for us to rely on Him and His faithful help in times of crisis. He wants us to run to His throne instead of running to man, TV, food, drugs, or any other vice we think might help us.
Now, not everyone will see a missing axe head as a crisis situation. But for this man, it was! It’s likely this prophet didn’t have a ton of money and the axe was borrowed. Without the means to replace it, who knows what the lender of the axe could have done to the borrower? Would he be merciful or would he withhold any show of grace? Or maybe the man wasn’t as concerned about his fate as he was just plain upset with himself for losing something valuable. God could have left this man to pay the price of his mistake, after all the Bible warns us that if anything is borrowed, it should be paid back. Exodus 22:14 and Psalms 37:21 say, “The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously.” In any case, God saw his great need, his cry for help, and had compassion on the man. Being the younger sister, there were many times when I borrowed clothing from my sister, and more than once, I ruined the article of clothing I had borrowed. I wasn’t in a position to repay her, but (most of the time) she showed compassion towards me and was so generous even when I didn’t deserve it.
In our story about Elisha, we’re told that Elisha threw a stick into the water and God made an iron axe head float to the surface. But notice that Elisha didn’t pick the axe head up and hand it to the man, rather Elisha told him to lift it out. I’ll never forget a message I once heard on the crippled man whose friends cut a hole in the roof where Jesus was preaching so they could lower their friend down to Jesus to be healed. (What friends! Lord, let me strive to be a friend like that!) When Jesus healed the man, He told him to get up, take his mat, and go home. (This story is found in Luke 5.) Why did Jesus tell him to take his mat? After all, the man didn’t need it anymore! He could walk home. Why not leave that mat at the feet of Jesus as a symbolic surrender that he was never going back to his old life? It’s because we need to exercise our faith! We need to actively take what Jesus is offering. We need to take our own axe head or mat, pick them up, and carry them with us so that we can take hold of the miracles that Jesus is performing in our lives and allow our faith to be strengthened. Growing up, my relationship with my dad wasn’t always very good, and there were plenty of times when I wanted God to be the one to pick up that “axe head” and hand it back to me fixed, perfect, and restored. But He wouldn’t. Instead, I had to be willing to get down and lift it out of the water, so that I would be open to the miracle God desperately wanted to perform in our relationship. That’s not always how God performs His “simple” miracles, but the book of James tells us that faith without action is dead. So let’s have faith that God can and will perform the miracles that our church, our families, our nation, and the world needs. But let’s also be willing to spring into action and lift up the axe heads.
I’m so thankful God cares for us, even regarding the smallest of things (like axe heads and rings). His compassion and faithfulness stir the desire for action in my heart. I pray that the next time you read about Elisha or find yourself working with an axe head of your own, you are reminded of Christ’s tremendous love for you and His desire to perform “simple” miracles in your life if you are just willing to reach in and lift it out!
