Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures, Part II
2 Kings 5-7 In my last article, I retold the children’s story of the Three Little Pigs. This story is a classic and shows the need for diligent action to receive the provision for our needs we are hoping for.
While this is not true in all aspects of life, it is many times true just the same. Once we have been called upon by God to perform the action necessary to receive His provision, we next have to decide whether or not we are willing to do that action. We must decide if we are willing to put in the hard work to get the results God wants us to have. We would rather that God just give us what we want and not to have to go through the struggles that often come along the way. Some times this is simply just not possible. Chuck Swindoll put it this way in his Insight for Living Daily Planner for 2005 on the entry for March 22, “Every achievement worth remembering is stained with the blood of diligence and scarred by the wounds of disappointment.” The problem is that we don’t want to have to go through the diligence or the wounds.
In our scriptures this week, we encounter a couple of situations that are just as desperate as the one you are going through. God comes through in each situation, but only after He has let the individuals, an Aramean captain, and Elisha’s servant, a faithful Jew, go through times of severe testing. They had to decide whether or not they trusted God to do what He was about to do and whether or not they were willing to stick with it through the tough times. You may be struggling with something that you have been working through for a long time. You have brought it to God and He has told you He is working it out, but it is not going as quickly or as easily as you wish He would. Read today’s scriptures and then you will have to decide if your situation is desperate enough to take the desperate measure of trusting God to come through when nothing else has worked.