When God turns things around...

After that account of Elijah and Elisha's final journey together, the last few verses of that chapter begin to tell us of some of the miracles in Elisha's lifetime. It's interesting to me that the very first miracle recorded for us after Elisha has walked through the parted waters of the Jordan involves purifying a spring of bitter water. (2 Kings 2: 19 - 22) Hundreds of years earlier, after Moses had walked through the waters of the Red Sea, the first miracle we're told about is when he purified the bitter water a Marah. (Exodus 15: 5)

In both cases, what happened was counter-intuitive and clearly of the Lord. Moses took something that was "dead" - a piece of dry wood - to make the spring of water life-giving again. And Elisha took something salty to make the water sweet again. To this day, Jericho is an oasis town watered by what is still known as "Elisha's Spring."

It's a reminder that God is a master in turning things around; He can take something that appears negative and use it to bring about something good - like using the violent shaking of the coronavirus to unleash a tsunami of His love and grace, a huge wave of people coming into the kingdom of God.