“Oh no, my master! What shall we do?”
Oh…how much wasted time I have spent in asking this same question, just as the servant of Elisha did in 2 Kings 6 when he saw the armies surrounding the city.
In compassionate response, Elisha said, “Fear not: those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
“Open his eyes,” the prophet asked Yahuweh, “so that he may see into the realm of reality.”–italics mine
When Yahuweh opens our eyes to see things from His perspective, then we will see that the problem and circumstance that seemed so great in surrounding us, is actually surrounded by Yahuweh’s solution.
What was the next thing that Elisha asked of Yahuweh? “Strike this army with blindness!”
One of the strategies of the enemy is to keep us focused and locked into the problematic circumstances surrounding us, keeping our eyes BLINDED to the reality of the fiery solutions that Yahuweh has already positioned around us.
If we are ever to experience Yahuweh’s rescue through his fiery solutions, we must learn to pray in asking Him to remove our blindness to His help, and to strike with blindness the enemy who has attempted to usurp the will of our General.
There must be discernment here. Not every problematic circumstance we face is from the enemy. Sometimes it is by our own hand, and sometimes it is just plain ol’ life–the result of living in a fallen and corrupt world. “In this world you will have problems,” Messiah said, “but I have overcome the world.”–paraphrase mine
Notice that He said that He did not overcome your problems, but has overcome the world. Yahushua has overcome the greater of the two–the world. This passage in John 16 promises us tribulation in this world–armies of tribulation. The systems of the world are what is damned–not the problems we face in it. Yahushua came to free us from what will damn us!
Although He does help us pass through our tribulations, it wasn’t for our tribulations that He overcame. The fallacy in thinking that our Savior came to overcome all of our problems, persecutions and tribulations, will leave us sick and weakly. And if this “escapism” mentality continues–that Yahushua came to save us from all of our problems–it may very well lead to apostasy in the end–a complete denial of the Savior Himself–because He was not the kind of “Savior” we thought He was.
No, He overcame the world, leaving an example of His life for us to follow. He overcame the world THROUGH tribulations. You see, tribulations in our life are mere tools to help us leverage His strength to OVERCOME this world and make it through to the end of our salvation. Salvation is the fruit of endurance (Luke 21:19).
Tribulations must become the whetstone we use to sharpen our fighting tactics.
If there is no sharpening, when we go in and attempt to ‘cut’ through the enemy’s line with our prayers, he will come after us, pursue us and overtake us because we were too ‘dull’ in our inability to endure THROUGH the very thing that was meant to sharpen us.
It is by our perseverance in seeking Yahuweh through our tribulations–not blaming Him for them–that He will open our eyes to His realm to see that what He is allowing is for the purpose of attaining the higher good within us.
When Yahuweh sees that we are not afraid of the tribulum of our circumstances, He will then open our eyes to the fact that He already has us surrounded by legions of solutions. And when our eyes are finally opened to the reality of His provisioning, we are then able to set before our enemy, food and water.
After the armies were led into Samaria, Elisha asked Yahuweh to open their eyes to where they were. Then when the king of Israel saw the armies, he asked Elisha, “My father, should I smite? Should I smite?” Elisha answered him, “why kill someone who has already been captured?” “Prepare a great feast for your enemy!”–paraphrase mine
This is a reminder of the words of Yahushua when He commanded us to do our enemies good, and to pray for those who despitefully use us. Why? Because those who have risen up against us are already captured in the eyes of Yahuweh. We take no vengeance against our enemies! And because Yahuweh has already captured our enemies, we are free to do them good. In other words, we are free to go and endure through our problems because Yahuweh has already brought the victory. It is all in how we look at things. We must look through the eyes of the One who sees the end from the beginning, and stop peering through the narrow visioning of our own “oh whoa is me” glasses.
This is the secret of overcoming the world through our tribulations and problematic circumstances. When we realize that Yahuweh has surrounded our enemies, and then has surrounded us, His servants, as with a shield of protection…then we have already won.
Go then, and prepare a feast for the things which are against you, because through Yahuweh’s eyes, they are already captured. And if our problems and tribulations are already captured, we can accept them, and use them to overcome the world–just as our Master Yahushua did!
Is there any finer privilege in this life than to do what our Master did?
Shalom and joy,
Derek
Dedicated to Ima
Note: This blog was based upon 2 Kings chapter 6 and Jonathan David Helser’s song: “God of the Angel Armies”