Dead Dreams

A friend of mine in Birmingham got a revelation about 2 Kings 4:8-36 (Previous post) and as i read through it, God is revealing some things to me too.
vs. 16: The Promise.
It is funny how sometimes, God gives us dreams that are so impossible, so improbable that most times are reactions are laughter (like in Sarah's case) or a mix of denial and anger (as in this case). Sometimes it is hard to get a hold of the dream when all you have known in a long while has been disappointment (vs 16b. “No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”). In other words, we get to a place where we kind of tell God either implicitly or explicitly, "Please don't raise my hopes up".

vs. 17: The Promise is Fulfilled.
But God has a way of making the impossible, possible.

vs. 20: The death of the promise.
Sometimes the promise dies. Maybe it was your fault or the life killed it. Whatever the case, the question still remains. What do we do with a dead promise? Do we bury it and say it wasn't meant to be? Or do we blame ourselves, our friends, time, the church or whoever/whatever we can attach blame to?
The thing that strikes me the most about this woman was her sincerity of emotion. In vs 28 she says “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn't I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?” The rest of the story tells us that those promises are not meant to stay dead. They are meant to be revived by the one (and only the one -vs 29-31) who gave them to us in the first place.

As we were discussing this passage, we were reminded of Ezekiel 37:1-14. But that is a topic for another day.