You Never Know

An interesting and challenging thought rose up in my mind during time in the Word. I was in 2 Kings 13:14-21 about Elisha (i love Elisha and all the stories of his life) anyway, this particular time he was talking with King Jehoash who was on his deathbed. Elisha told the king to shoot an arrow out of his window as the Lord’s arrow of victory. Now the king was interested in victory so no problem-he did exactly what he was told and a devastating defeat of the Arameans was prophesied as a result.

Then Elisha told the king to take his arrows and strike the ground. Which he did but only 3 times. This upset Elisha because he knew that the number of times the arrows struck the ground represented the number of defeats of the Arameans. Interesting.

When the king knew what was at stake he jumped in and did what he was told. When he was told to do something that he didn’t really have all the details to, he stopped short. I wonder how many times I have limited God’s activity in my life, or His glory being revealed because I stopped short? Do you have a tendency to obey less enthusiastically and energetically when you have less details?

I was struck anew with the concept that you and I just don’t know what decisions we are making that could possibly be HUGE for ourselves or other people. Could that mundane everyday option to obey or not obey God be the choice that sends you into another level of spiritual maturity or responsibility??

It comes to this for me. I have to be willing to obey God wholeheartedly and with great expectation even when I have no idea whether the task holds huge significance or not. I just don’t ever want to miss out on the many years of victory because I picked a small number without really understanding what I was doing. Don’t you bet Jehoash was like–whoa, wait a minute let’s run through that one more time and he would still be striking the ground today if he had known that each hit was a victory. Too bad he didn’t have that knowledge in advance of his choice BUT he did know he was dealing with his God and he did know that his God was powerful so somewhere in that whole story is the lesson that when God is involved, and He always in, we need to be careful not to limit what he can do by our expectations or lack of them….

let’s live like every decision we make could have radical consequences–after all they can
JOYfully,
Rachel