Dark Times Make us Crazy
2 Kings 6 and 7 reminds of God’s faithfulness in dark times. It’s up to us to focus on His past victories and let them guide our behavior and attitude. The cynical officer shows how we ruin our own future with poisonous words about God’s promise.
Samaria, Israel’s principle city, experienced a famine because of the siege from Syria. The bible doesn’t tell us how long this siege lasted but it’s pretty clear it took a while. The people in Samaria were eating donkey’s heads and boiling children, that’s desperate.
Most of this plays out in chapter 6. By the end of the chapter the king of Israel sends a messenger to Elisha.
The king wanted to kill Elisha. The man of God (Elisha) shut the door on him as he approached. Elisha even exclaims to the elders “Do you see how this son of a murderer has come to take away my head?” But the king’s messenger wants to know how long to wait for the Lord’s rescue. The people are starving after all.
Chapter 7 begins with a prophecy from the Lord through Elisha to the messenger. “Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria”. An officer who accompanied the king’s messenger, said to Elisha “Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Elisha replied to the officer “…In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” (verse 2)
The question from the officer is not in good faith. He’s seen a desperate population become increasingly monstrous.
He is mocking the possibility that the city will go back to normal. Elisha’s pronouncement shows how commerce will return the next day. No more donkey’s head soup either. Under normal circumstances that takes a while. Even if the army left immediately, the Samarians would still need to go harvest and trade until the price stabilized.
Of course it happens exactly like Elisha said. The encamped Syrian army gets scared off by the sounds of horses and chariots. The Lord caused them to hear it, even though there was no army, and leave camp. They left their food and silver and gold for the leapers who left Samaria hoping to surrender or be killed. They knew they were dead if they stayed in the city. The famine affected everyone, most of all the leapers who aren’t welcome with the rest of the population.
I think the lesson here is to trust in God’s plan even when it feels like nothing is happening. In our world we get used to planning our lives. We go to work and raise kids. We fall into routines of our own making. Add a few decades to this principle and entire countries forget the greatness of God. We don’t rely on His goodness and daily bread for our lives. We call to Him when we need help. Nothing is wrong with that. The Heavenly Father loves for us to ask Him to do great things (Mark 11:24).
But our comfortable existence numbs us to the pain of others. Where is the place in our hearts for the Savior, the Redeemer, the King, the Healer. I’m not going to give a hundred examples as proof that global Christianity needs a new awakening. If the reaction from churches around the world, and here in America, to the pandemic wasn’t a marker of where we are in faith I don’t want to know what it will take. Our country saw faith healers praying for vaccines and closing down church for months. They put hand sanitizing stations all over their foyers, social distanced the seating and insisted on masks for the healthy.
It took us all by surprise. At least a lot of leaders recognized this for what it was, an attempt to instill fear and confusion into the population. There is good news too. People have found their voice in this time and God is getting credit once again. One channel I follow (on Telegram) was all politics with a side of prayer and healing. In the last few months it’s become all about healing and a side of politics. Followers are sharing testimonies of God’s miraculous healing in their lives. Our faith in God’s plan is being strengthened in the midst of a corrupt generation.
We’ve been asleep for too long. We’ve gotten comfortable with the position of God in our lives, an addition to our well planned lives. But he demands the central role and decider of the direction for our world. We are about to see a major shift in the social, political and religious institutions around the world.
Our prayer as Christians should be, keep us from the cynicism of the officer in 2 Kings. Give us an anticipation of Your plan. Put in us a desire to be used for Your glory. Provide us with opportunities to stretch ourselves, just a little, and watch Your plan unfold like You’ve promised it would.
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