Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer. Welcome to another week of the month of October 2023. I pray that your heart will always be strengthened never to settle for anything less than what God wants you to have and enjoy in life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
One of the things we see in Scriptures is that God does not force people to embrace and enjoy His provisions for them. If we will not accept what He is offering us, He may not do anything to make sure we have it. And if we also decide to settle for anything less than what He wants us to have, He may not do anything to make us have everything He wants us to have.
For instance, as we are shown in the bible, when King Jehoash of Israel went to visit Prophet Elisha before he died, he showed himself as not passionate enough to experience the height of victory God wanted him to have over his enemies. As the account goes, Elisha had told this king to get a bow and some arrows to shoot. Why? Was it to entertain himself? No! Rather, it was something spiritually symbolic. As Elisha pointed out to him, the arrows he would be shooting were the Lord’s arrows of victory over the Arameans. (Cf. 2Kings 13:14-17)
Until that time the Arameans had been terribly oppressing the Israelites. The situation was so bad that Jehoash’s later father was left with only fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot-soldiers – the rest of his army had been utterly crushed (2Kings 13:7). So, if the land would be delivered and established in prosperity again, they would need to have victory over these Arameans as many times as necessary.
But it would take the miraculous for that to happen. God would need to step into the situation and give them victory over and over again for them to be completely free from the oppression of the Arameans. Why, then, did He not go ahead and give them all the victories they needed? Did He not care about them enough to do so? Or must they pray to Him before He would show that He cared about them?
Well, to answer these questions, God really cared about these Israelites and wanted to set them free from their oppressors. And as we see in the story, He was not even going to wait for all of them to gather to pray to Him before He would do something about their situation. However, He did not want to do anything about their matter without first letting them know that He was the one at work. Otherwise, they may give the credit meant for Him to themselves or to some dead gods. That was why He told Elisha to inform their king about it before it started happening.
In like manner, there are times that God may have to show us some of us some visions or dreams or send some prophets or angels to us before He does certain things for us. And this is so that we will know that the success, healing or protection we are enjoying is not a product of chance or anything we have done for ourselves. Rather, it is a product of His good works in our lives.
Furthermore, God wanted this king, Jehoash, to see how passionate he himself was about subduing his enemies and establishing his nation in peace and prosperity. So, He instructed Elisha to tell him to shoot those arrows of victory over the Arameans. Unfortunately, though this man knew exactly the implication of what he was doing, he shot only three arrows and stopped. That means he was satisfied with defeating the Arameans only three times. (Cf. 2Kings 13:18)
But would defeating them only three times be enough to permanently destroy the yokes they placed on the Israelites? No! Even Elisha, who was neither a soldier nor a politician, could tell that three back-to-back rounds of victory over the Arameans was not enough to give them permanent peace. They would need like five to six consistent rounds of victory over them for that to happen. Sadly, for some reasons, the ruler of the land, who was also their representative before God, decided that three rounds of victory was enough for him. And God approved it. He did not even tell him to go over the process again. He simply sealed his choice.
In the same vein, if, maybe because of fear, laziness or failure mentality, we too should go for anything less than what God wants us to have, He may just let it be. But soon enough we will realise that anything less than what God wants us to have will never be sufficient for us to experience the peace, rest and fruitfulness He wants us to enjoy in life. So, in relating to God, don’t ever aim for anything less than what He wants you to have or what you truly need. Otherwise, you may forever feel sorry for yourself for doing so.
Have a great week.
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