BUT OUR EYES ARE ON YOU

This week, an Instagram post from an amazing Bible Study teacher, Priscilla Shirer, was particularly powerful. She was quoting from her Elijah Study with this gem of wisdom:

“Your loving Father has categories of answers, solutions and options that you don’t even know exist.”

Reflecting on this, the Bible story of King Jehoshaphat, found in 2 Chronicles 20, came to mind. Dallas Willard, iconic theologian, once defined God’s address as being at the “end of our rope.” If this is true, and Michael Canale, co-author of this blog, and I believe that it is, then Judah’s King Jehoshaphat was, in these verses, at God’s address and pounding on His door! This King was truly at the end his rope and desperate in every sense of the word. Why? Because he had just received a report that a well-fortified and vast army had joined forces with yet another military power and that they intended to come against Jerusalem and all of Judah. King Jehoshaphat, a good and God-honoring  king, recognized that they were outnumbered and short on time to prepare militarily. Scripture tells us what he, with his back against the wall and all of Judah with him, did next:

“Shaken, Jehoshaphat prayed. He went to God for help and ordered a nation-wide fast. The country of Judah united in seeking God’s help – they came from all the cities of Judah to pray to God.” (2 Chronicles 20:3-4) The Message.

Jehoshaphat’s prayer is one of the greats in all of Scripture. It begins,

“LORD, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. If calamity comes upon us…we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.”

What Jehoshaphat prayed next may surprise some. It substantiates that God’s shoulders are broad enough for us to register a complaint concerning Him:

“But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.”

The key to this prayer follows:

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:6-12) NIV

How often in our own lives do we face a dilemma that leaves us not knowing what to do. May we, on those occasions, follow suit with Jehoshaphat in this prayer by saying to God that our eyes are on Him! The story continues as,

“All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood before the LORD.” (2 Chronicles 2:13) NIV

These people had all stopped talking and Jehoshaphat had ceased praying. As Michael says, “There comes a time in prayer when we must put an end to our own speaking and listen. Only then, will we allow God the opportunity to speak; only then can we hear what it is He is saying.” As it always does, God’s answer came to them:

“Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Jahaziel…a Levite…as he stood in the assembly.” (2 Chronicles 20:14) NIV

As Michael put it, this priest was “dipped in the Holy Spirit.” And, in this state, he began to give God’s message to them, to speak the answer to their prayer, carried along by the Spirit:

“He said, ‘Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow, march down against them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO FIGHT THIS BATTLE. (emphasis added) Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance that the LORD will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.” (2 Chronicles 20:15-17) NIV

What did Jehoshaphat and all of Judah do next? Run off to the Desert of Jeruel? Not at all.

“Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down to worship before the LORD, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice.” (2 Chronicles 20:18-19) NIV The Message says, “…they praised Him at the top of their lungs!”

We might say, of course, they praised and thanked God. Wouldn’t anyone, after receiving such an answer to prayer? Michael says, “Not necessarily,” and Scripture affirms this. While we can be so quick to blame God when things go wrong – even things that are a result of free will gone awry and other foolish decisions –  stopping to thank God is sometimes sadly absent from great deliverances. Just a cursory look in the Bible gives evidence of this, such as when Jesus healed ten lepers. (Luke 17:11-19) How many of them returned to thank him? One of the ten! Jesus inquired, “Where are the other nine?” Nowhere to be found! God help us to do what Jehoshaphat and his people did when we, also, are given life-redeeming answer to prayer.

After falling on their faces and praising God, these people were still not finished:

“After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness.”(2 Chronicles 20:21) NIV

After this, came God’s great deliverance:

“As soon as they started shouting and praising, God set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah…The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir…Then, further confused, they went at each other…As Judah came up over the rise, looking into the wilderness for the horde of barbarians, they…saw not a living soul among them.”  (2 Chronicles 20:22-24) The Message

Later, after returning to Jerusalem…

“They entered Jerusalem and went to the temple of the LORD with harps and lyres and trumpets.” 2 Chronicles 20:28) NIV

Their voices, their prostration before God, their musical instruments had been their weapons of victory, their praise was their military advantage.

In this life, we are sometimes faced with so many problems that it seems that vast armies are hellbent on ambushing our lives. May our first reaction to these be to come before God who has all the solutions. May we be candid with Him who knows it all anyhow. When we do not know what to do, may our eyes be on Him whose battle it has always been.

No one has said it better than truly anointed Pastor Steven Furtick in this Twitter post that I read the morning I sat down to write the blog for this week. The following is his sermon titled, “God Wants His Battle Back.”

“We say the battle is God’s but we worry like it is ours. Now we’ve wasted all our strength worrying when we could have been worshipping. The battle is not yours. Give it back! Quit doing His battle. Give it back! Quit doing God’s job for Him. God wants His battle back! God wants His battle back! It’s too big for you. It came up behind you. You can’t do it. Give it back! You can’t fight it. Give it back! You can’t figure it out. Give it back! How do you give it back? Look beyond what’s coming against you and look toward what’s in you to know that, ‘Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.’
God wants His battle back