Wishing vs Acting

I wanna start with a quote today:

“Act not on the mere strength of what you have, but in expectation of that which you have asked.” - Charles Spurgeon

“Lazily wishing and strenuously desiring are two entirely different postures of mind; the former gets nothing and the latter gets everything, gets God, and with God all that God can bring.” - Alexander Maclaren

(Okay, so two quotes, technically speaking. But keep their words in mind …)

Did you know that the prophet Elijah doesn’t ever die? Instead, while he and his successor, Elisha (I know: Elijah and Elisha. Talk about a tongue twister), are walking and talking, a chariot of fire swoops down from Heaven and he’s taken up “in a whirlwind” (2 Kings 2:11).

How does Elisha respond to this supernatural event? He gets busy with his God-given mission...

When an Israelite army runs out of water, he tells the solders to dig ditches that God will fill, not from rainwater, but from some miraculous source (2 Kings 3:16-20).

Then he visits a destitute widow, tells her to borrow jars from her neighbors, empty them out, and fill them with her meager-but-somehow-limitless supply of oil; she’ll sell the jars of oil to pay off her debts (2 Kings 4:2-7).

Next comes a barren woman who’s told that she’ll give birth to a son (that son, as it turns out, ends up dying and being raised to life, due to Elisha’s fervent prayers to the Almighty).

He cleanses a polluted stream with a few handfuls of salt, tosses some flour into a poisonous stew to fix it, and feeds a hundred people by divinely multiplying twenty loaves of bread (2 Kings 2:19-22, 4:40-44).

Plus, Elisha tells a leprous dude that he’ll be healed, if only he dunks himself into the Jordan River seven times; and later, he throws a stick into the water to make a sunken ax float (2 Kings 5:10, 6:5-7).

Now, besides the sheer magnitude of Elisha and the Lord’s miracles, what’s most impressive about them is their familiarity. Readers, do any of these stories ring a bell? Raising a child up from the dead, feeding multitudes off of meager scraps, healing leprosy? Jesus does all of these!

Despite living hundreds of years before his Messiah, Elisha acts—as Charles Spurgeon puts it—not in his own strength, but in eager expectation of Him Who is to come.

Elisha knows the Maker of Heaven and Earth can do all of the things he’s asked of Him, and so, he asks boldly, confidently, is positive that the prophetic visions God gives him will come to pass. And even when they don’t occur instantly—the little boy doesn’t come back to life right away, but after many desperate prayers—Elisha’s faith is unswayed, since his confidence is in the One Who is eternally unswayed.

We see this even more so later on:

“When [Elisha] got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17, emphasis mine).

While I’m tempted to bold/emphasize this entire section (I mean, there’s so much to talk about with God opening our eyes and how His army is greater than whatever evils we face), for the sake of our focus, we’re going to hone in on the chariots.

Because Elisha has seen his friend swept up to Heaven by a fiery angelic chariot, he trusts that those same chariots are shielding the Chosen People now. For every earthly weapon of destruction, there are a plethora of heavenly soldiers ready to vanquish them … and they do.

Right after Elisha and his servant see the spiritual reality before them, the battle at Dothan is won, thanks to God blinding His enemies and making them utterly defenseless (they’re not actually killed, by the way; instead, they’re captured, given food, and sent back home).

It’s clear that the Lord’s heavenly armies have partnered with Elisha and the Israelis to overpower their pagan foes, and this story brings us to the other way God’s prophet foreshadows a certain Prince of Peace (Is 9:6).

We’ve already established that Jesus and Elisha work similar miracles, but you know what else they both do really well? Make the receivers of said miracles work for them, thus demonstrating their faith.

Let’s look at Elisha’s actions first, shall we?

The soldiers dig ditches and the amount they dig—referencing both the number of ditches and how deep they are—directly correlates to how much water they’re able to hold. Likewise, whether or not the widow has enough money to pay off her debts is dependent on how many jars she humbly collects from her neighbors. The once-poisoned soup has to be eaten in faith, the man has to sacrifice his lunch to feed the hundred, the guy with leprosy has to dive into ordinary waters, the soldier who drops his miraculously-floating ax must reach into the water to retrieve it, and Elisha’s servant has to desire the divine sight God can give him (and if you’re wondering why I skipped the woman whose son comes back to life, it’s because she fails to walk in faith. She’s doesn’t listen to the prophet’s instructions, hence why Elisha’s first attempt is unsuccessful).

And with Jesus, we have all of these partnering-with-God-instead-of-expecting-a-hand-out instances:

He turns water into wine, but the servants have to fill the vessels with water first (John 2:7).

Feeding the five-thousand is dependent upon a little boy donating a few fish and loaves (John 6:9).

He easily heals a nobleman’s son, Peter’s mother-in-law, a leper, a centurion’s servant, a paralytic, a bleeding woman, two blind friends, a mute, an invalid, a guy with a withered hand, a deaf-mute, a blind man, another blind man, a crippled woman, a man with dropsy, two more blind men (sensing a theme here?), and ten more lepers … but they have to want Him to work (John 4:46-47, Mark 1:30-31, Mark 1:40-45, Matt 8:5-13, Matt 9:1-8, Luke 8:43-48, Matt 9:27-31, Matt 9:32-33, John 5:1-9, Matt 12:10-13, Mark 7:31-37, Mark 8:22-26,

John 9:1-38, Luke 13:10-17, Luke 14:1-4, Matt 20:30-34, Luke 17:11-19).

Furthermore, let’s not forget how He provides boatloads of fish—on two separate occasions—once His disciples move the nets the way He instructs them to; casts demons out of at least seven, desperate, pleading people; feeds four thousand when they sit down to give thanks; stills the storm after the disciples beg Him to save them; and raises three people—not counting Himself—from the dead because their relatives cry out to Him (Luke 5:1-11, John 21:1-14, Mark 1:23-28, Matt 8:28-34, Matt 12:22, Matt 15:22-28, Matt 17:14-21, Luke 13:10-17, Matt 15:32-39, Matt 8:23-27, Luke 7:11-18, Matt 9:18-26, John 11:1-46).

Practically ever Messianic miracle documented in Scripture points to not just wishing for something to change, but strenuously desiring—as Alexander Maclaren words it—the Lord to work. It’s about putting in the effort, through prayer, meditating on His Words, and seeking His will above our own, because ultimately, the Rescuer wants us to work with Him so we can receive our rescue (Phil 2:12-13). Even the gift of salvation must stem from our desire to be saved (Rom 10:9-13).

From Elijah to Elisha to Jesus, the Christian walk is full of work. Of hard, sometimes hopeless work. But it pays off in the end; for He will do 99.9999999% of it, if only we put in the 0.000001%.

So, friends, we have to do more than just wish we stop being anxious, or expect our own feeble strength to rewire our anxiety-prone brains. No. We have to strenuously desire, work and act and believe in His ability, not ours. Anyone can say God, take away my fear, but how many of us are willing to struggle through the instructions He’s given us?

He says to take every thought captive to make it obedient to His teachings, thus, we need to dive into His Word and learn what He says (2 Cor 10:5). He says to fear not because He is with us, so we need to believe that and recite it, in order to ward off our panic attacks (Is 41:10).

While there are many more verses I could reference, the bottom line is that we need to be centering our lives around the Son, 'cause let me tell you, His Word is the blueprint for a flourishing, abundant life (John 1:1, 10:10).

He’s ready to work with us, if only we’ll work alongside Him.