MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

DAY 174: When I reached the age of 38 I was convinced I had a brain tumor.  I developed headaches. My vision was blurry.  I found myself squinting often.  In my mind, I began wondering who would dress my children when I was gone because my husband has no sense of style.  When your mortality if staring you in the face these crucial issues demand attention.  

As I was beginning to plan my family's life without me I had an epiphany.  What if it wasn't a tumor?  What if I just needed to see the eye doctor?

While I had been busy trying to keep the wrinkles away, my eyes aged on me.  Sadly, once I got glasses I could see more clearly that the rest of me had started aging, too.  The good news was I could finally read a phone book again.  Most of my issues were resolved with reading glasses which I could buy at the dollar store, and since I had a hard time keeping up with them, I bought 5 or 6 pair at a time. But still, they seemed to disappear.

My kids finally declared me senile the day I was turning over cushions, searching piles and screaming out, "Where are my glasses?"  My daughter asked why I didn't just use the pair on the top of my head - or the pair on the chain around my neck! I didn't need to buy glasses.  I just needed to open my eyes to see what I already had.  

That humiliation aside, the mistake itself is one many of us make - we fail to see what we already have available to us because we are looking in the wrong places. Today's Bible reading should encourage all of us that there is more than meets the eye even if we don't always see it.  

Elisha was an Old Testament prophet who always spoke God's message accurately.  It wasn't always popular - which meant that Elisha was not always popular.  In this particular instance, Elisha had been giving God's message to the King of Israel that were militarily strategic against the King of Aram. Obviously it was not a popular message with that King.

2 Kings 6:4 So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city. 15 When the servant of the man of God (Elisha) got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. 

The servant of Elisha seemed to see the situation very clearly.  They were surrounded. They were outnumbered.  They were in big trouble.  The servant ran to Elisha in desperation, crying out, "Oh sir, what will we do now?"

RUN!  HIDE!  That seemed to be the obvious answer, but it was not the answer Elisha gave. 
16 “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”

Was the prophet crazy?  Elisha was with one servant.  They were surrounded by a great army with many chariots and horses. Could he not see what was happening? He saw more.

17 Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open (my servant's) eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire. 

Elisha did not pray that God would send an army.  He prayed that His servant would have the ability to see what God had already provided.   

Help had already come, the servant just need the eyes to see it. Maybe he was so busy staring at the problem that he never bothered to look for God's provision. His focus was on the wrong place - and he lacked the vision to see what had already been provided. 

God is a supernatural God.  His help always comes in supernatural ways - sometimes we can see it easily as God places it more obviously in our natural world - and sometimes we need to take our spiritual faith glasses off of our head of what we "know"  and put them on our eyes so that we can "see".

Perhaps that kind of seeing begins with believing that God is not only able but wants to send His help.  We won't bother looking unless we believe there is something to see. Either way, if we insist on only looking at the problem instead of searching the horizon for God's provision we will surely fail to see it.
  
One thing we can ALWAYS be sure of - "there are more on our side than on theirs!" Let's pray that we, too, have eyes to see that. 


Day 174 of 365
    2 Kings 6
    2 Kings 7
    Acts 15:36-41
    Acts 16:1-15
    Psalm 142:1-7
    Proverbs 17:24-25

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