There are those who do not believe.
That’s their prerogative and I’m not going to impose my view on them at all. What I would say, however, is that in not believing, it’s really important to be careful not to be a scornful doubter.
What I love about stories – true or fictional – are depictions of characters we can understand and respond to accordingly. Aspects of characters we can be drawn to or geel repelled by. I like that in a good story. There’s often a case when I’m hearing a story where there’s a particular character and I end up thinking, I do not want to be that guy.
In the Bible there’s this episode where the city of Samaria is under siege. The people are meant to be God-fearers, but their relationship is … complicated. Sometimes they go for Him, sometimes they prefer other gods. Sometimes they’ll have theirother gods and still be looking to God to help – like I said, complicated. In any case the people were under siege to the enemy and the siege was so bad that the circumstances in the city were truly dire. Dire to the point that the king was asked to adjudicate a dispute where two women were arguing over boiling their children. (Yeah – that dire.)
Understandably under those circumstances, the king wasn’t happy and needed to take it out on the man of God – in this situation the man of God was called Elisha. By ‘take it out’, I mean kill him. What Elisha said under those circumstances was extraordinary. He didn’t fight for his life, he didn’t do a runner, what he simply stated for the hearing of the king was that within a day the dire situation would be completely reversed from abject lack to abundant provision.
Now if I heard someone say that – make that kind of bold and remarkable statement, even I would have to consider that for a while. However used to life in faith you may be, there have got to be times when you hear, read or otherwise receive some words where you don’t immediately jump on it unquestionably. Yet it’s one thing to do that, and something completely different to dismiss it out of hand.
The episode in question features the king’s right hand man. When he hears it, he makes a big mistake and suggests that even if God did something, what Elisha said was utterly out of the question. He doesn’t suggest that in his head, he blurts it out to question the legitimacy of the man of God and more troublingly of God Himself.
Elisha’s response to the man was blunt. He told the king’s right hand man that he’ll see it for himself, but never experience any of it.
Sure enough, within the day the circumstances dramatically and miraculously are reversed – that’s a great story in itself for another time. Such is the heightened state of delirium for the abundant provision that a stampede takes place. In all the commotion, who should be a victim of that stampede than the king’s right hand man who definitely saw the reversal of fortunes, but never tasted or touched any of it.
See – I don’t want to be that guy. That’s not the kind of stamp of approval I’m looking for.
Faith in God is necessarily faith in the unknown as far as we’re concerned. It’s certainly calling us to stretch ourselves into areas where we can only depend on Him to help. There’s nothing wrong in acknowledging from time to time we might question it and not be completely sure about something. What we cannot afford to do, however, is to scornfully dismiss what God offers us in the life of faith. We cannot afford to do it in case we miss out on what He’s offering and worse still as we miss out, we see what we could have won and never experience it.
Ask questions for sure, but don’t be a scornful doubter – you don’t want to be that guy.
(Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 