Sit...or Run

Sit...or Run!

II Kings 7:3-4 NKJV:
Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.”

There was famine in Samaria due to the siege laid by the Syrians. People were eating their children for food due to hunger. These were the people of God, called and chosen by him, yet they had made a choice to rebel. Their kings led them into idolatry and disobedience and it was a cycle of war, victories, defeats and rebellion. No wonder there was no peace. There can never be peace in a life where the Prince of Peace has no control. If there was ever a doubt that God could use anybody to fulfil his purpose, today's story underlines that. Here were outcasts, lepers who were not counted as part of society, who lived on the outskirts of the city and bore the scars of their status visibly, being used by God to kick-start the miracle of abundance God had promised. It doesn't matter where you have been or where you are coming from; God is interested in the NOW and how he can take you from the NOW to the glorious future he has prepared for you. 

It doesn't matter what people call you; it only matters indeed what God says about you. If the world calls you connected, privileged and prosperous, and God calls you wretched and poor, tell me, whose opinion counts? These leprous men had an understanding that many of us, able-bodied and agile, are yet to fully understand: you must walk the talk. Many times, we speak about having faith in God's ability to help our situation but we do nothing to kick-start the process. We pray and pray and then sit on our hands, somehow expecting that by the natural order of things, they would work out. We do nothing, take no step of faith, go nowhere, say nothing else, make no consultations. Faith is not an inactive term; it is a verb- an active verb, asking us to take just 1 step in the direction of the fulfilment of our dreams.

The step may come in 'insignificant' ways but it is a step in the right direction. All God needs to bless is the little effort. He will bless the rest. Just like these lepers said, and just like Esther said, how our lives end is just about as important as the contents of our lives. These people had weighed the possibility of death and still, they went on. Death wil come one day, should the Lord tarry but while we wait,we work and walk. Where we need to speak in faith, we do; where we need to act in faith, we do; even when going out is seen as 'foolishness' to the world, as long as we have a settled witness in our hearts that we are on the right path, we press on. God will bless the rest and make it the best. Rejoice as you live by faith, working, walking, talking and living out that which God has inspired in you. God's time of favour is here.