Our Eyes Are On You!
One of my favourite prayers in the Bible was given by a man named Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20.
For context, Jehoshaphat was the King of Judah when the Moabites formed a large alliance with other enemies of Israel and marched against Jehoshaphat. The situation was bleak. Listen to verse 3: “Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”
Jehoshaphat was clearly outnumbered, and under normal circumstances, Judah’s doom seemed imminent.
But circumstances are never normal when God is engaged!
Jehoshaphat gathered the people together and led them in prayer in verses 6 through 12.
Jehoshaphat Acknowledged God’s Power
“O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.”
We know that God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still God in Heaven. He still rules over all the countries and nations. He still holds power and might in His hand. And nothing, not even coronavirus, is able to withstand Him.
2. Jehoshaphat Remembered God’s Help In Past Times
“Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’”
Jehoshaphat remembered how God had previously defeated their enemies and settled His people in the promised land. Jehoshaphat remembered that the people could come to God and seek His help, and He would hear them and save them.
Even so today, we need to remember all of the things that God has done for us in the past. We can all think of ways that He has helped us, or healed us, or guided us, or sustained us. We have come through wars, plagues, famines, depressions, and recessions, and He has always been by our side. So we can be confident that He will be by our sides now, too. Take a moment to write down some of the ways in which God has been there for you in the past.
3. Jehoshaphat Brought the Current Situation Before God
“And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy—behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us.”
We can be confident that God is able to hear and understand our concerns: the threat of illness; the fear and doubt of the unknown; the anxiety of seeing empty shelves at the grocery store. We don’t have to pretend that everything is ok. We don’t have to pretend that this isn’t stressful. Of course it is! But God is able to understand, and He is able to deal with it all. It’s ok to tell God about our feelings. Even this good King of Judah brought his concerns fully to God.
4. Jehoshaphat Acknowledged His Weakness and Placed His Trust In God
“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”
If I’m being honest, I really don’t know what to do, other than take each day as it comes right now. But by giving it up to God, and not trying to mentally cross bridges that may never exist, I can trust God to deal with the situation in His way, and I can be better prepared to hear and understand His instructions. Our eyes are on Him. We don’t know what to do, but He does, and that makes all the difference.
So today, turn your eyes to God. Use Jehoshaphat’s prayer as a model for your own. God is in control, and He knows what to do.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for praying.