A long time ago, a man came upon a widow who had a son.  Unfortunately, the son fell sick and died, flooding the man with emotion and sorrow.  He called upon the Lord to bring the boy back to life, back to his mother.  The Father responded, and life was breathed back into the young body.  The boy was returned to his mother, and God was given due credit for the miracle.

At first glance, you might say, "I recognize that story.  I've heard it a hundred times."  It might be a bit of a surprise, though, to find out that the above events were recorded in the Old Testament.  The man in this story is the prophet Elijah.

Hundreds of years later, though, another widow lost her only son.  As his lifeless body was being carried away, another man had compassion.  He told her to cry no more, and he touched the casket.  The boy sat up and began to speak before he was given back to his exuberant mother.  The crowd around them were, justifiably, a bit shaken up, but they gave God the glory.

We can learn a lot from looking at these two unique, yet similar, stories.  We are reminded, first of all, of God's infinite power, even over death.  These boys were gone, incapable of being revived with even the most advanced technology of today's medicine.  But God breathed life back into them, and they were as good as new.  Certainly, many more examples of resurrections exist in the Bible, including One who defeated death after being tortured and hung on a cross.

Elijah also showed how powerful faith and prayer can be.  I Kings 17:22 says, "And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived."  The prophet prayed faithfully that God would bring the boy back, and He did!  We must never underestimate the power of prayer, no matter how big or small our request may be.  God will always listen.  He may not always see it best to give us what we desire, but we can always bring it to Him, confident that He will do what is best.

The reason these passages are Scripture "gems," though, is because they tell similar stories despite taking place hundreds of years apart.  It never ceases to amaze how many times the Old Testament foreshadows the New Testament, specifically the life of Christ.  The God who breathed new life into the widow's son in Elijah's story is the same God who revived the widow's son by Jesus.

God truly is a God of wonders and miracles.  His power is beyond life and death and spans across centuries, across millenniums.  The more we read of His Word, one cannot help but be completely overwhelmed by the perfection and consistency of the authors inspired by the Spirit.