Tuesday, July 20
We rely on You!
Scripture: 2 Chronicles 13-14, John 20
2 Chronicles 14:11 Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, “Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you.”
Observation
King Asa of Judah was facing an invasion of the Cushite army from Egypt, an army that outnumbered his own.
Speaking of numbers: the size of armies and numbers of casualties in these OT stories are astonishingly large. For example, in the previous chapter, King Abijah of Judah inflicted 500,000 casualties on King Jeroboam of Israel. Some scholars think these numbers are either inflated or misunderstood. The Hebrew word for “thousands” may be the Hebrew word for chief, officer or special warrior.
Here is a quote from Eerdmans Bible Commentary on this passage. “The Chronicler enumerates Asa’s army with its “three hundred specially trained men from Judah” (v.8) we are pointing the subject that is being counted as ʾallûp̱, i.e., “chief, officer, famous man, specially trained warrior” (Wenham, “Large Numbers,” pp. 27, 30), rather than as ʾelep̱, “thousand”—with “two hundred and eighty” special warriors “from Benjamin”; for notice the contextual emphasis on their specialized weapons and their distinction as “brave fighting men.”
The point of the numbers is that Judah was out-numbered! Like his father before him, Asa prayed for God’s help in the battle and trusted in the Lord. “We rely on you.”
Application
I prayed this prayer this morning over several battles I’m facing. One is a battle that’s facing all of us in the western US—drought, heat and wildfires. I’m praying for rain! Good long soaking rain! I live on a well, and this morning our faucets were sputtering, so I’ve turned off our sprinklers and I’m letting our lawn go brown and dormant. I’d rather have a brown lawn and water to drink, than have a green lawn and a defunct well! The drought is “mighty”—it is an enemy that we can’t fight on our own. So I’m praying and relying on the Lord.
There are other battles that are beyond me as well. I’m praying for healing for some friends who are facing life-threatening illness. I’m praying for a friend who is dying whom I want to be ready to meet Jesus. I’m praying for friends whose marriages are threatened, whose finances are endangered, and whose faith is struggling. I’m praying for our church and many other churches who face an uphill battle recovering from this past year of Covid.
These are big battles…we rely on You!
Prayer: “Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you.”