We know the story of Abraham pretty well. Isaiah and James both tell us he was called the friend of God. Can you imagine an honor so great that God called you His friend? Abraham had a special relationship with His Creator. When God told him he would have an offspring, even though he and Sarah were in their 60s and 70s, he believed God.
“And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6 ESV).
Even though he was the father of our faith, Abraham still had a few warts, and the Bible doesn’t hide them from us. He tried to help God along with a carnal plan to produce an heir. On a couple of occasions, he lied to save his life rather than turn to God for protection. And yet, God loved Him and still kept His promises to Abraham.
Why would a friend of God make these silly mistakes? Probably the same reason you and I make silly mistakes with God. We often let fear take hold of us and rather than turn to the One who can walk with us while we fear, we take matters into our own hands. Often, when we try to figure out how to deliver ourselves, we let fear guide us rather than let faith lead the way. When we do that, it can lead to some bad decisions.
But even when we make the same mistakes Abraham made, there are important lessons we can learn. Our mistakes don’t mean that God stops loving us or that He stops caring for us. Too many people believe that God is so fickle, He only loves us when we are perfect. But the Bible teaches us so many times the opposite is true. In fact, it is in our imperfection that God loves us. And just like with Abraham, God works with us on our journey of life to help perfect us and to make us more and more like Jesus as we walk with Him. He doesn’t wad us up and throw us away when we falter. Even in his Egypt moments, God still loved his friend and took care of him, as we will see in a moment.
So, what happened when this friend of God went to Egypt? This is a story of Abraham, that for decades, I have focused on the wrong lessons. I focused on Abraham and his sinful conduct while seeing God’s grace toward him. While this is still a central theme of the Egypt story, there is an even more amazing lesson for me I missed for most of my life. This is the focus of today’s post. It’s the lesson of God keeping His promises in Egypt, even when Abraham messed up and acted without God. In Egypt, you see God acting like a true friend, and it is an amazing and wonderful thing to behold.
Genesis 12 starts off with one of the most iconic passages in all of Scripture. It’s where God makes His covenant promises to Abraham.
“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3 ESV).
God promises to make Abraham a great nation, even though at 75, he has yet to produce an heir. He promises him land that his seed shall live in. He promises to bless all nations through his seed, and He promises to make Abraham’s name great. But it’s this last promise I want to focus. It’s the covenant promise to bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him. This is God’s personal promise of protection to Abraham. In God, Abraham would find blessing and respect. God would be his personal protector.
Abraham receives these promises and believes his Friend. He listens to God, knowing that in some foreign land lay his destiny. After a few months, he and his family arrive in Canaan, the land God will give to his family in time. But, the first test of faith soon comes.
“Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” (Genesis 12:10 ESV).
Even though God gave Abraham a promise that insulated him from the dire consequences of famine or any other calamity, this life event still causes Abraham to take action. We aren’t told if He prayed to God about how to handle his famine season, but there is no evidence he did. Perhaps this is Abraham’s self-preservation kicking in. Regardless of whether or not Abraham sought God’s counsel, it soon becomes evident that, while in Egypt, he would do things his own way.
“When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,
and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.
Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” (Genesis 12:11-13 ESV).
Where was his faith in his Friend? Instead of relying on God’s protection, Abraham took matters into his own hands. It wasn’t long ago when God promised to bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him. Abraham fell into the same trap we fall into over and over. Rather than trust God in faith when we face difficult circumstances, we often try to maneuver through the hard things ourselves. What does that mean about God? Does He throw up His hands in disgust and irritation at us and let us fend for ourselves? Is that the way a true friend acts?
Even though Abraham took a major misstep in Egypt, God used it as a moment to remind Abraham of the promises He made to him. Listen to what happens and watch God be true to those promises when Pharaoh took Sarah to be one of his wives:
“But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?” (Genesis 12:17-18 ESV).
The Lord kept the word of His great covenant, didn’t He? He blessed those who blessed Abraham and cursed those who cursed Abraham. What an amazing moment this must have been for Abraham to behold. The God who promised to give his seed land, to make him a great nation, and to bless all people through his seed was showing His ability to deliver on His promises by cursing those who cursed him and blessing those who blessed him.
It was in Egypt, Abraham learned something about his Friend. God was true to His word even when Abraham stumbled. God was faithful when Abraham feared. God would deliver even when Abraham walked into danger on his own accord. This tells us a lot about God’s character and how He deals with those who struggle with carnal weaknesses, but still walk with Him daily while fighting the carnal nature.
Do you want to know something even more amazing? It won’t be long before Abraham makes the same mistake with King Abimelech when he passes Sarah off as his sister to save His skin. How does His friend respond? By blessing those who bless him and cursing those who curse him.
God never condoned Abraham’s sin or his lack of faith, but God used these times to teach Abraham a lesson that strengthened his faith and showed him steadfast love. God does the same to us today if our hearts are open to see these messages and learn these lessons. God doesn’t wad us up and throw us away when we stumble. Even when we are as thick-headed as Abraham and repeat our folly, God stands ready to show us why we can lean into Him in every circumstance and through every fear.
God’s faithfulness to us isn’t dependent on our perfect walk with him. It depends on us continuing to walk with Him, even when we stumble forward. God will still work with us and still love us. He is not fickle, even when we falter and show fickleness toward Him. He is there to pick us up when we fall and demonstrate His lovingkindness even when we make mistakes.
He does it because that’s what a true friend does. If only we could be called a friend of God, this is how He would treat us today…
“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” (John 15:15a ESV).
Think about that. God calls us His friend. And just as He stood by Abraham in Egypt, He stands by us today. So when fear threatens to take hold, remember the Friend we have in Him. Trust His promises. Lean into His steadfast love.
Because no matter how many Egypts we find ourselves in, He will never give up on us.
“Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.” (Acts 7:58 ESV).
Can you imagine what it was like for Stephen to see the angry mob pick up stones as they prepared to kill him for preaching Jesus?
I cannot imagine what it must have felt like when the first rock slammed into his body.
Over and over and over, the rocks rained down on him as vicious men took out their anger upon him.
Soon, the pain must have morphed into numbness as the reality of death set in.
Jesus appeared to Stephen, standing at the right hand of God, waiting to invite him home.
Yet, with his dying breath, Stephen echoed his Savior’s words upon the cross, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Then Stephen died.
Years later, Saul, now Paul, was preaching the same message Stephen preached, and the people responded in anger against him, just as he had responded in anger against Stephen all those years ago.
Can you imagine what it was like for Paul to see the angry mob pick up stones as they prepared to kill him for preaching Jesus?
I cannot imagine what it must have felt like when the first rock slammed into his body.
Over and over and over, the rocks rained down on him as vicious men took out their anger upon him.
Soon, the pain must have morphed into numbness as the reality of death set in.
I wonder if Paul thought of Stephen with his dying breath. I wonder if he regretted the role he had played in the man’s death he had come to believed was a righteous man.
When the mob was convinced Paul was dead, they dragged him out of the city.
Yet, while Stephen went on to his reward as the Lord’s first martyr, Paul
“rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.” (Acts 14:20b ESV).
While most of us will never likely face stoning or death for our faith in Jesus, let us be careful of the metaphorical stones we cast at others we disagree with.
What a tragedy to find ourselves suffering the same fate as those we hated and railed against, whose character we assassinated, because we cast our stones too quickly with little thought or prayerful investigation into the things that angered us against them.
I am in the book of Isaiah in my daily Bible reading. 150 years before Cyrus the great was born, God spoke through Isaiah about His plans to use the mighty Persian ruler for His purposes.
This was an audacious show of supreme sovereignty. Listen to what God says about His plans for someone who would be born a century and a half later:
“who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.” (Isaiah 44:28 ESV).
No squishy language. No ambiguous words. No double speak.
God laid it on the line with precise language that showed His control over all.
“Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:” (Isaiah 45:1 ESV).
and later,
“For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.” (Isaiah 45:4 ESV).
Few passages are so straightforward in their evidentiary nature. History testifies to the veracity of God’s prophetic words about Cyrus.
While it pleases God that we have faith in Him and believe without seeing, He gives us enough meat to sink the teeth of our faith into.
Cyrus is an amazing testimony of God’s complete control over kings, over time, over nations. Our God is in heaven and does all that He pleases.
God is the potter over all things, forming everything to serve His purpose. This is the One to whom we place our faith.
This is the One to whom we trust to serve up the day of reckoning and make wrongs all right.
This is the One who cannot forget the least of us, nor let anyone slip through the cracks of His fingers.
If God could name His shepherd, Cyrus, 150 years before his birth, then He will have no problem keeping that which we’ve committed unto Him against that day.
150 years later, Ezra writes,
“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel--he is the God who is in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:1-3 ESV).
Our God does all that He pleases.
I am still in the book of Isaiah. Bear with me as I share one more observation from my reading this morning. What an amazing and comforting book that speaks to the breathtaking nature of our God.
“For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD, your Redeemer.” (Isaiah 54:7-8 ESV).
God’s anger is short-lived. He does not wad us up and throw us away. While we may stir His anger, it is His everlasting love and compassion that He showers upon us.
Do we wonder if God will ever take us back after our many sins against Him?
Yes, yes, and YES!
His anger is brief, but His love and compassion for us is everlasting.
Come home to a God with arms wide open, eagerly waiting to receive us into His bosom.
I am in Isaiah in my daily Bible reading. It is a hard book. I love the passages that say the glory of the Lord shall be our rear guard (Isaiah 58:8).
I love the passages that say the Lord will renew our strength and we shall mount up with wings like an eagle, we will run and not be weary and walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31).
I love how it says the Lord will be gracious to us as we wait on Him. He will be our arm and salvation in time of trouble (Isaiah 33:2).
I love how it says that the Lord will be our everlasting light and He will be our glory (Isaiah 60:19).
All of these verses, and so many more, are verses I love to dwell on. I love the message they bring to me. They encourage and inspire me.
But the same prophet also says things that I sometime think we turn a blind eye to. They are not verses we take the same inspirational meaning from.
While we are quick to claim the verses I mention above, some verses we are quick to remind ourselves are part of the Old Testament and not part of our new covenant with God.
So we claim what we like and leave what makes us feel uncomfortable.
While I do not believe we live under the old covenant, I think we need to pause when we consider the character of God to claim wonderful things about His nature and ignore other things that speak to His character as well.
I leave us all these words to consider with the hope we will consider becoming balanced in the way we let this mighty prophet affect us in our walk with God.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” (Isaiah 58:7 ESV).
and
“if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10 ESV).
and
“learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” (Isaiah 1:17 ESV).
Jesus teaches us that we have two great commandments that all the law and the prophets hang on:
To love God with all our heart and might.
To love our neighbors as ourselves.
We read Isaiah and love to stitch motivational verses on our pillows and frame them on our walls. But do we take to heart the love we should show our neighbor who is in need?
This post is really not for you. It’s for me. I’m just inviting you to see some struggles I am going through as I read this wonderful book. How well am I living a life that shows my love to God and my love to those who Jesus teaches are my neighbor?
I’ve got some contemplating to do. What a wonderful, yet sober prophetic book.
I am in the book of Joshua in my daily Bible reading. What an amazing man Joshua was. He was a faithful servant of Moses, even when it wasn’t popular to stand with Moses. He was a leader among his tribe, one of two faithful spies who brought back a good report from the land of Canaan.
God chose Joshua to be the leader who would follow Moses and lead the Israelites into the promised land. God was with him and gave him favor in the eyes of the people by elevating him in their eyes.
He was a man of war, never fearing battle because of his great faith that God would fight their battle. When the tiny city of AI defeated the people, Joshua was devastated. It wasn’t because he feared man, but he couldn’t understand how God could let his enemies gain victory over them.
36 Israelites died in that battle. In any other battle, that would have been counted a tremendous thing. But when God led Israel, we understand that 100% of the soldiers who went into battle returned to their families after the battle.
When Joshua realized why AI was able to defeat Israel, he took action to bring the people into subjection to God and went into battle with AI again.
100% of the Israelites who went into this battle returned home to their families after the battle.
What could we do in this wicked and perverse generation if we believed the Lord fought our battles? What could we do if we believed Jesus was the Commander of His army and we fought behind His banner? What if we believed that the battle belonged to the Lord?
The truth is, we know that man can only harm the flesh, right? But God can destroy, or keep, both body and soul.
Joshua lived his life, believing what the Psalmist said,
“The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6 ESV).
“Indeed, what can man do to us? What is the worst that can happen” to us? Our faith is in King Jesus. When it is, we do not need to fear. The victory that is assured is ours because we belong to Jesus.
When we believe that, we can walk in faith, even in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. We can take the battle to the enemy because our weapons are forged in Heaven and our strength is given by the Holy Spirit.
We can march in faith, without fear, because we march behind the banner of King Jesus.
Is this really something we can claim today? Is this kind of faith only for Joshua and the people under God’s Old Covenant?
No. This assurance belongs even to us as we follow the Messiah who came to claim His throne. This is why the Hebrews writer tells us today,
“So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6 ESV).
Judgment Day will be an overwhelming day. Perhaps 100 billion people will be gathered before the throne of Jesus to give account of their lives.
Will we be found in Him? Will He find us ready, or will He catch us off guard, walking our own path rather than walking with Him?
Do we love Him with everything in us and do we love our neighbor as we love ourselves?
Everything else in Kingdom living rests on those two commandments.
Today, we are one day closer to Judgment Day. Are we one day further down the narrow path, hand-in-hand with Jesus today?
It’s interesting…
The more wisdom God gives us, the more foolish we realize we are.
The more discernment the Lord gives us, the more dependent on Him we realize we are.
The more we realize our weaknesses and limitations, the more we realize His sufficiency for all our needs.
Indeed, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
I am in the book of Joshua in my daily Bible reading. One interesting thing I see is how God often plays the long game. Where we live in a society that values instant gratification, God is a patient God.
In Joshua, I read about God delivering the land promise He made to Abraham 500 years earlier. That’s twice the age of our country.
Imagine God promising George Washington that He would give America land from sea to shining sea, and today, we’d only be halfway between the promise and the fulfillment of the promise.
Sometimes, it’s not the passing of generations in which the Lord acts. With Abraham, it was a short 25 years from the time He promised Abraham a child to the time He gave Isaac as the fulfillment of the promise.
When we can order something from Amazon and receive it in a few hours, waiting on the Lord seems like such a burden. I fear that somewhere along the way, we have forgotten how to wait upon the Lord.
Instead of believing in faith, waiting upon the Lord becomes a burden and a trial that seems unfair. Abraham believed God, yet he never owned the land of Canaan, he never saw the sea of people that were his descendants, and he never saw all nations of the earth being blessed through his seed.
But the book of Joshua reminds us that while God may be patient when He acts on His promises, He does act.
He never forgets.
He never loses interest.
He never changes His mind.
Jesus says,
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:2-3 ESV).
It’s been 2000 years since He made that promise. Joshua teaches me that while it has been a long time, God is still a God who knows how to deliver on what He promises.
It was 2000 years before the Lord blessed all nations through Abraham’s seed as He promised He would. Waiting 2000 years for the Lord to keep His promise to return and bring us home with Him is not a hard thing for Him to do.
If we can learn to see things from His eternal perspective instead of from our fleeting perspective, we can have the faith Abraham had, and it will be accounted to us as righteousness as well.
“But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come…” (2 Peter 3:8-10a ESV).
ChatGPT just told me I’ve lived over 2.1 billion seconds. This really puts time into perspective.
It has been nice to see a world come together, for at least a small moment, to focus on Jesus and hope for peace and good tidings on earth among men.
This is the wonderful thing about Christmas. But after every Christmas comes December 26th. We return to our lives, often forgetting Jesus, bringing Him up when it is convenient for us.
We close our wallets and watch people on the news return to their vitriolic speech, their character assassinations, their violence against their fellow man.
While it was good to see man striving for a suspension of all that is bad for the hope of all that is good, it seems to me that every Christmas season, this reprieve from all that is wrong with man is becoming shorter in length and more shallow in its depth.
If we would capture the Christmas aspiration in our hearts each day and learn to live it out for the 364 days after Christmas, we would be able to better
experience what the fullness of Kingdom living on earth should really be like for mankind.
While the Christmas spirit, based on the angelic chorus to the shepherds on the day of Jesus’ birth may be short-lived, I’ll take it. It shines a light on what mankind is capable of achieving if we focus on the godly principles of what is good and right.
Perhaps the citizens of Jesus’ Kingdom will continue to be the salt of the world for 364 days. Perhaps we can help expand His Kingdom and inch a little closer to the Christmas spirit we all love every December 25th.
Maybe there is a Christmas coming when it will only be a self-centered day of “what’s in it for me?”, having abandoned any pretense of peace and good tidings on earth. Some may even claim that this time has already come.
Perhaps it has.
But for the few who kneel before King Jesus, we strive for the Christmas spirit every day. Not because we long for a secular holiday to celebrate gift-giving, but because we long for the good and biblical principles that encourage people to live their better self by being a giver, sacrificing for others, and finding joy amid chaos.
I don’t know how long December 25th will continue to capture what makes Christmas really special as the godly foundations of this holiday continue to wane, but that doesn’t mean we as followers of Jesus cannot carry that spirit in our hearts.
It’s not Christmas that makes Christmas special. For the child of God, it’s what Christmas strives to be because it claims the godly principles that give us something to aspire to as a people.
For those who give their allegiance to King Jesus, these are the principles that will be part of our daily life. What a wonderful life we have in Him.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
Isn’t it amazing how God can answer our prayers for wisdom while allowing us to retain enough foolishness to remind us that what wisdom we have is, indeed, a gift from Him and not of ourselves?
Free will is the ability to make a choice among available options. It is not living a fatalistic life. It is not following a predetermined path.
Animals live by instinct. Man is able to see his circumstance and still choose the moral and right path.
Too many believe that God’s sovereignty neuters man’s free will. But it is in God’s supreme sovereignty that He grants man the free will to choose.
Man’s free will to choose good or evil glorifies the only Being with the power and sovereignty to grant man such an ability while requiring man to account for the free will choices we make.
Faith is the expression of our free will service and allegiance to the One with the intrinsic right as our Creator to direct us in the choices we should make.
The choices belong to us, but so do the consequences of the choices we make.
Many people I know hate Trump. Many love him. I have my own personal view, and I will tell you that there is no perfect place to fall because we are dealing with imperfect and evil people.
Rather than argue with you about politics, trying to excoriate or venerate evil people, whether they be members of the Republican, Democrat, Independent, or any other party, I will always point you to the one Person who truly has the government on His shoulders.
He is the only Leader I can point to with confidence Who reigns perfectly and never with evil or selfish motives.
He is the One who has a throne He ascended to after serving the very citizens who executed Him in cold-blooded anger.
I proudly confess Jesus as my King, my God, and my Savior. He is my High Priest, my Shepherd, and my Lord. He is my Creator and my Friend.
While I may hold my nose and support men on earth who are flawed, evil, and rule with selfish motives and intent, I know my King has ultimate sovereignty over all the world’s rulers.
My King is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. He is in heaven and does all that He pleases (Psalms 115:3).
You will not hurt my feelings if you argue against the human I may support to lead our nation, but I will vehemently defend my King who rides the clouds of Heaven and rules with all authority under His feet as He sits on His throne next to the Ancient of Days.
Say what you want of my earthly ruler. His reign will soon come to an end anyway. But of my King who sits on His heavenly throne, I will defend to my dying breath, and He will continue to reign long after my body decays in the earth until that day, with the power of His word, He returns to call me from the grave to live with Him forever.
It’s coming…
The return of the King…
Are you ready?
Make plans for 2025, just hours away,
But…
Remember…
“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:11-13 ESV).
I am in the book of 2 Chronicles in my daily Bible reading. In Chapter 10, we see Israel split into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah. This was from God.
The chapter talks about how God effected this split. When Solomon died, his son, Rehoboam, took the throne and sought wisdom from the elders and the youth on how to rule over the people.
We know the story, don’t we? Rehoboam listened to the advice of the young people and spurned the wise council of the elders. We hear many sermons about the need to respect the wisdom and experience of our elders and be careful of the inexperience and foolishness of the youth.
This is typically sound advice, but we need to be careful when we heed anyone’s advice, don’t we? While the proverb of listening to our elders over the wisdom of the youth is sound, sometimes our elders are wrong and our youth speak with wisdom.
We can even see this in the Bible. It was Elihu, the young friend of Job, who spoke wise words when Job’s three elder friends spoke untrue words that angered God. Elihu was Job’s only friend God never chastised.
It was the young David who spoke words of wisdom when the elder king Saul spoke untrue words.
It was the young king Josiah who went against the evil elder generation of his day and spoke words that turned God’s heart toward him.
These are not the norm, but the exclusion. Still, it reminds us we must not let age alone determine the true and wise action to take.
I am privy to a conversation between a young man who approached an elder of the church with a serious and heartfelt question. As I understand it, the elder responded to this young man something to the effect that this is just the way people in his generation seem to think and the elder never even attempted to answer the young man’s question.
This was not a wise answer. It insinuated that the young man was wrong in his thinking because of his association and not by his understanding. The elder never even attempted to address the young man’s concern. The response of this specific elder was foolish. (For those who know me, this was not one of the elders from the church I attend).
We should seek the advice of the older generation because they bring with them life experience and because they have seen pitfalls that many young people have not seen. Had Rehoboam listened to the elders in his court, he would have received wise counsel.
We should give weight to the counsel of those with gray hair and experience, but we need to remember that wrinkles do not make someone infallible. Sometimes it may be the advice of a younger person in which wisdom resides. Truth is truth regardless of who speaks it.
I am in 2 Chronicles in my daily Bible reading. King Jehoshaphat is reigning over Judah as one of the few righteous kings.
Soon, some of his men came to him with bad news.
“Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, Engedi).” (2 Chronicles 20:2 ESV).
King Jehoshaphat was afraid and did what we all should do first when we are afraid.
“Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.” (2 Chronicles 20:3 ESV).
If you want to know how to go to God in prayer when fear has a tight grip on you, read Jehoshaphat’s prayer to God in chapter 20. There, he goes before God in praise and petition. It is a prayer of a humble man who knows God is the only place to turn.
For today’s focus, I want to highlight a specific part of his prayer that we all need to remember when fear grips our souls. Listen to the assessment Jehoshaphat makes to God:
“O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:12 ESV).
Do you see that? God, we are powerless without you.
God, we don’t know what to do and our eyes are on you.
If we can come to God with this disposition every time we fear, we will have more peace than we think possible.
It’s okay to admit we are powerless. God expects us to look to Him for deliverance and not to search for deliverance in ourselves.
It’s vital that we admit it to God when we don’t know what to do. There is no shame in not knowing what to do as long as we know where to go and to set our eyes on the One who does know what to do.
Sometimes, in our fear, we try to figure out how God is supposed to help us instead of simply looking to Him for deliverance when we don’t know what to do.
Our God is our refuge. In our greatest hours of need, let Him be just that.