Crawling out of Holes

I love reading the stories in the Old Testament about the kings of Israel.  I’m drawn to the sometimes flawed leadership so many of these men and the men around them displayed.  I was reading this morning about Saul and his army engaged in battle with Philistines in 1 Samuel 13 & 14.  Saul rushes ahead with out listening to all of God’s instructions and is eventually rebuked by God through the prophet Samuel.  Saul finds himself "hiding" in caves with six hundred men with the Philistine army breathing down his neck.  To make matters worse, none of his men are armed!  Only Saul and his son Jonathan have swords!  This is, to say the least, quite a predicament.

Saul seems content to hide in his hole.  Jonathan, though, decides to venture out.  He talks his ‘plan’ over with his armor bearer.  Basically Jonathan has in mind walking out and showing themselves to the Philistine army and then playing it by ear…  The best part of the story is the explination Jonathan gives to his armor bearer to justify his decision, "perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf."  Wow!  Jonathan decides that after showing themselves to the enemy they will listen to the enemies response.  If the Philistines tell them to stay where they are, they will and if the enemy tells them to advance, well, they’ll listen to that as well, trusting that God will be with them!

Jonathan advances on the Philistines trusting God and kills twenty enemy soldiers that day.  He refused to hide in the rocks.  He trusted that perhaps God would act in his behalf.  Mark Batterson asks a great question wondering how many believers act with the opposite idea in mind; perhaps the Lord will not act in my behalf .

My prayer for Wallula Christian Church is that we would not stay hidden in the rocks, that we would not act out of the presumption that God will not act.  But instead, we would boldly venture out, unarmed, undermanned, prayerfully confident that maybe, just maybe, the Lord would act on our behalf!