Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | …We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.   2 Chronicles 20:12

Playwright Eugene O’Neill is quoted as saying, “There is no present or future‑‑only the past, happening over and over again‑‑now.” O’Neill did not carve his reputation as an historian, but no historian could have put it any better. “There is no present or future‑‑only the past happening over and over again‑‑now.” Do you believe that?

Pick up your newspaper and you may possibly read of a new chapter of a very old conflict. Five thousand years of recorded history are a repetition of man’s fight to stay alive, and the struggle continues, be it in the chambers of the United Nations or the battlefields of the world. Life does not offer us the opportunity of choosing the conflicts that we encounter, but it does offer us the choice of how we react to them. What about the battles that you are facing right now? New? No! Others have faced similar conflict. How about it? Battling financial problems? Struggling with temptation? Overcome with worry? “There is no present or future” when it comes to difficulty, “only the past, happening over and over again‑‑now.”

But what is yet to be determined is how you face the battle and ultimately what you do about it. It is certain that eventually you have to do something , but what? “I don’t know what to do!” Have you ever said it? Sure you have! And that is exactly what Jehoshaphat, king of Israel, told God centuries ago.

You can read about it in 2 Chronicles 20. Not unlike what has happened in our generation, the combined Arab armies of Moab and Amman‑‑modern Jordan today‑‑came against Israel in battle. The king, whose name was Jehoshaphat, was first afraid‑‑not an unpredictable reaction when difficulty or danger is present‑‑but then he did something that is often foreign to us today.

He began to earnestly seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all the land. He gathered the people together and began to do some pretty earnest praying. He reminded God of some promises that had first been made to his forefathers, and then cried out, “…Neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon Thee” (II Chronicles 20:12, KJV). How much like the heart cry that says, “God I don’t know what to do, but I’m asking You to show me what to do.” Jehoshaphat could not call upon the United States to bail him out; neither could he petition the Security Council of the United Nations. He simply said, “God we don’t know what to do but our eyes are upon You…” Say, that is an interesting thought, “Our eyes are upon You.”

Too often we pray to God and look to someone else to answer our petition. “God,” we say, “I want your help,” while we expect it to come from someone else. Can God really be expected to hear and answer prayer? The record of Scripture, like the problems of history, is that God will meet you in the hour of crisis if you will turn to Him with all your heart.

God spoke in the time of crisis and His message is the same today to those who will rely on Him. He said, “…Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15 KJV). God told them to go out to battle, for the Lord would be with them.

A closing thought: God seldom delivers us from the battles of life, but it is much better to face them realizing that He is with us, than to be spared them, and not realize His strength on our behalf in the time of trouble.

Resource reading: 2 Chronicles 20.