Daily life with Jesus by Grahame Howard: 'I don't know what to do, Lord'

"O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You."
2 Chronicles 20:12 of 2 Chronicles 20 NKJV

Jehoshaphat was faced with a great problem, a multitude of armies were coming against them to attack Israel - Moabites, Ammonites and Meuntites and he became afraid. But rather than cower in fear, he declared a fast and called the nation to seek the Lord.

The people came from far to seek God. This may have been from a necessity to repent and ask for God's favour and forgiveness, as well as ask for wisdom and power to face this incredible problem that was imminent. When our hearts are right before the Lord, He reveals His will and brings protection. When our hearts are not right, it's possible that He will allow things to happen to us in order to get our attention. This all helps to keep our focus on Him and Him only; not on the battle that we face. He is able to take care of that. It is more important that we make sure our walk is right with Him. When we do this, the rest will follow. This all comes from prayer and possible fasting. God doesn't want us to deliberately starve ourselves. Fasting is a way that we can show Him that we mean business and we are willing to make sacrifices in this way. This helps us to win.

Jehoshaphat reminded God that they were in the place that He had provided to their descendants, the people who were attacking them, God had prevented their descendants from attacking and they were now showing their thankfulness by trying to kill them and take their land. At that time, their descendants, had stood in the place and declared that if disaster should ever come upon them, they would cry out to God and He would hear their prayer and save them (verse 9)

Reminding God of His promises is never rude, pompous or out of line. We have a relationship with Him - a covenant, and He holds that dearly and so should we. Through Jesus, we have a wonderful relationship with God, and He wants us to trust and rely on Him. Jehoshaphat said, 'Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.' (Paraphrase) It was almost like he was saying, 'Lord we don't know what to do, but You do and we're counting on You.' Nothing wrong with that, because we are displaying our trust and friendship with Him.

Our whole relationship with Jesus would be greatly improved, if we could say, Jesus, our eyes are upon You.' Just think about that. Whatever problem came our way, if we were only to say to Him, 'Jesus, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon You, because You know the way forward, because You are the way. We are counting on You and You only.'

There would be no mountain too big for us to conquer. Try it.

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard