God provides miracles in many shapes and sizes throughout our lives!  From waking up each day, to avoiding a wreck on the way to work, to a refund you didn’t expect but needed desperately to pay a bill, to the healing of a illness that could have taken life away but didn’t.  God is all around us, watching over us, providing miracles when we least expect it.  Sometimes, it is the miracle of His strength in our weakness when we go through trials, thinking God is not there because we cannot “feel or see Him” at work.

But it is in the worst circumstance that God shows up most glorious to remind us that He was there all along, working in our lives and in the lives around us.  In our imperfect, fallible world because of sin; God is and always will be at work.  His glory is seen more visibly when our trust grows stronger

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How do I know, you might ask? “I’ve seen it with my own eyes!” I am still discovering how God works; but one thing is assured; the more I trust in God the more aware of God I become.  The more I trust God, I see God at work in miraculous ways.  In dire situations; my prayers always include, “God, may your glory be seen in this circumstance” along with, “Lord, May your glory be seen in me so others will know you, too.”

Elisha is a prophet of God who believes and sees what God sees as he tenaciously trusts God in all the details of life.  He sees God for who He is and what He can do.  Elisha asks God first what He thinks then believes what God says to be the absolute truth that is to be trusted and obeyed without question. Do we?

2 Kings 6

An Axhead Floats

The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. ² Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to meet.”

And he said, “Go.”

³ Then one of them said, “Won’t you please come with your servants?”

“I will,” Elisha replied. ⁴ And he went with them.

They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. ⁵ As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh no, my lord!” he cried out. “It was borrowed!”

⁶ The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. ⁷ “Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

Elisha Traps Blinded Arameans

⁸ Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

⁹ The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” ¹⁰ So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

¹¹ This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

¹² “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

¹³ “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” ¹⁴ Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

¹⁵ When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

¹⁶ “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

¹⁷ And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

¹⁸ As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

¹⁹ Elisha told them, “This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to Samaria.

²⁰ After they entered the city, Elisha said, “Lord, open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Then the Lord opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria.

²¹ When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”

²² “Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill those you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.” ²³ So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.

Famine in Besieged Samaria

²⁴ Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. ²⁵ There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.

²⁶ As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

²⁷ The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” ²⁸ Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ ²⁹ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

³⁰ When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth on his body. ³¹ He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”

³² Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?” ³³ While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him.

The king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

Chapter 7

Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”

² The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?”

“You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Consider what Jesus said who healed the blind and deaf in more ways than the physical—

In reference to their seeing with eyes wide open, Jesus taught his disciples the true meaning and depth of trust in God with; “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29

“Blessed are those who do see”, specifically Matthew 13:16, means we gain knowledge of God through Jesus when we listen with teachable ears and see with pure trust in God, our Father.  Jesus’s disciples learned that trusting what they saw and heard led to knowing and understanding more the divine truths He was teaching. They had heard what many in their historical past, including prophets and kings, had said but could not yet understand. Similar teaching is in Luke 10:23 where Jesus tells His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see”. The blessing is for those who have been given spiritual insight to understand God’s word, which offers the opportunity to choose righteousness.  Trust God first; then understanding of God builds.

Our response:

• Believe, repent and be saved from all our sins. New Life begins that assures eternal Life with God.
• Listen with open ears and eyes wide open to hear with tuned in tenaciousness and focused minds to understand what God’s Holy Spirit who lives in us is teaching us—all Truth.
• Trust and obey.  “We’ll see it with our own eyes!” all that God is doing right in front of us!  God is always at work!  His love never fails and never gives up on us.

You have heard it said, “seeing is believing.” But Jesus says, “believing is seeing.”

Lord,

Thank you for this lesson of trust. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls, and restore the joy of your salvation always at work in all who will trust and obey. Thank you, thank you, thank you! To you be all the glory, honor, and praise!

In Jesus Name, Amen

HE WON’T FAIL

I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve seen it in my own life
He keeps every promise, I’ll never be forsaken
He keeps every promise, I’ll never be forsaken

(He Won’t Fail, by Todd Galberth)