I heard the message at a conference last week…
A teaching on how we all need to somehow get permission to start… but then we decide when to quit… when to stop… when enough is enough…
And [Elisha] said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground with them.” And he struck three times and stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.”
2Kings 13:18-19 ESV
The king of Israel came for encouragement in war… he was distressed because Elisha had been a source of godly wisdom… but he now lay on his deathbed…
To ease the king’s concerns… Elisha used arrows to give a prophetic message…
Elisha first told the king to shoot an arrow out the window… toward the east…
Before the king took aim… Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands…
The arrow shot straight and true… The Lord’s arrow of victory… Elisha called it…
Then came the call to take the arrows… and strike the ground…
Here is where the king listened to the word of God… but then stopped without being told… I guess he thought it was enough… didn’t see the point in beating the ground…
Elisha’s demonstration revealed what we can do in God’s hand at His command… but what’s in us… determines just how great the victory will be…
The King of kings… the Lord… does His part… steadies the arrow… tells him what to do…
But… for some reason… the king of Israel stops doing what he was told to do… without being told to stop…
What has God told you to do…? are you still doing it…?
Are you continuing…? even when you feel stupid…? tired…? you can’t see anything being accomplished…?
Or have you… stopped…?
Here’s the deal… what I learned from the message…
This is not about us… how we feel… or what we see… or think reasonable…
This is about trusting God with the victory…
Trusting His promises…
Trusting His call…
Continuing on…
Even when it looks like you’re just beating the ground with a stick…!
Whatever you do… DON’T STOP… what He has called you to start…
At least not until He tells you to… or He stops you altogether…
Amen…
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