Ever felt like you're at the end of your rope? My mother always said that when you feel like you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot at the end of it and hang on! Jehoshaphat was one of those people in the Bible who felt like he was at the end of his rope. He was in the middle of a great battle and found himself overwhelmed.
2 Chronicles 20: 1, 4-6, 10-12 says, "After this, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and with them the Meunites came against Jehoshaphat to battle. And Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O Lord, God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven? And do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? In Your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand You. And now behold, the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, whom You would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they turned from and did not destroy. Behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not exercise judgement upon them? For we have no might to stand against this great company that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You."
You can find 3 important statements that apply to us today just as much as they did to the people of Judah who were facing some giant problems:
1) "We have no might to stand against this great company that is coming against us."
2) "We do not know what to do."
3) "But our eyes are on You."
When we reach the point of being able to admit these 3 things to the Lord in complete and total honesty and dependence upon Him, He will be free to move on our behalf as He did for the people in this story.
Sometimes we wonder why it seems as though God is dragging His feet. The answer may be that we are still too full of ourselves and are busy trying to be independent and trying to figure things out on our own. The reason God may not be taking control of our situation is that we won't let go of it. That is what the Bible means when it says the battle is not ours, but God's
2 comments:
We live in such an "instant society" that it can be difficult to wait for anything even if it is for the Lord to move in a certain situation.
We must remember that God's timing is not our timing. We have such a finite view of what's going on while He can see "the BIG picture".
For those of us who are accustomed to being "fixers", letting go and letting God plan the battle His way can be very daunting.
As you said, it is only when we realize that we are weak and He is strong... and we have to rely completely on Him... will the answer come.
Thank you for your words of wisdom.
Love the new pic on the right!
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