Elisha Vision – Commentary

Around 1935 my Dad and Mom took a trip from Illinois to the West Coast to visit friends and it may have been to celebrate their fifth anniversary. It was about that time in their marriage. While on the coast, Dad contracted a life-threatening case of typhoid fever. It appeared to all that he would die a young man without any children.

He told me the story himself many times as I was growing up. He faced the end of his life lying in a hospital bed in a strange land far away from all but his loving wife. That last night he said goodbye to her, and made His peace with God. He said he faced the reality that he would probably not wake up the next morning. He was ready to “give up the ghost” as they say. Just before he closed his eyes for what he expected to be the last time in this life, his eye caught a slight movement outside the open window near his hospital bed. He saw the wind gently moving some hollyhock buds growing right outside his window. At that moment, he thought: “I wonder if those buds will open and bloom in the morning? Maybe I will just wake up early and see if they bloom.” With that he fell asleep. During the night, his typhoid fever broke and he woke up to the morning light and fully blooming hollyhocks. He was a new man. He was healed and lived a happy, blessed and thankful ninety years; with two sons, seven grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren and still counting great-great-grandchildren! Oh! And guess what became his favorite flower?

Just a twinkling moment, frozen in time, bought fifty-five more years. Would the hollyhocks bloom?  LIFE seduced my Dad. What wondrous ways are the works of Yehovah! Dad knew something about abiding in the vine. After you face death and win, there is nothing else that can threaten you. Your life is in God, it is His call. So you live LIFE. You serve Him, not to obtain anything, but out of gratitude. Thank you Jesus!

(An excerpt from my newest book, Generation LIFE, available in August, Lord willing.)

Dad’s favorite verse:

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists      (READ MORE)