He Comes Through

When your hands are tied, 
when you’re powerless 
and at the mercy of circumstance, 
that’s when God excels. 

His strong hand of action 
is waiting to move; 
he has the authority to conquer 
in every situation. 

He is paying attention,
he never stops working.
His strength is truly sufficient
to accomplish anything.

When you’re at a loss,
just turn to the Master.
And he, the Almighty God,
will always come through.

His love and his power
show up in perfection
if you yield yourself to him,
just as he promised.

If you don’t ask,
if you choose your own way,
you pay the consequences:
you fall or you stray.

Over and over our God has promised in his Word that he will defend us, strengthen us and guide us when we are walking with him. So what happens when we turn away and do our own thing?

I’ve been reading 2 Chronicles lately, and there are clear answers to that question! King Asa, for example, spent 35 years of his reign as king in submission to Yahweh, his God. He removed the altars to false gods and commanded his people in Judah to seek Yahweh and obey his commandments. After 10 years of rest, the Ethiopians attacked them.

¹¹ And Asa cried to the LORD his God, “O LORD, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.”  (2 Chr. 14:11 ESV)

Since he relied on Yahweh, they defeated the huge army of the Ethiopians!

A prophet came to warn King Asa how crucial this submission was:

The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, ² and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” (2 Chr. 15:1,2)

As a result, Asa became yet braver and destroyed yet more idols. Then he gathered all the people together to enter into a covenant to seek Yahweh their God  “with all their heart and all their soul” (v.12). Asa even removed his mother from being queen mother because of her worship of Asherah, a false god.

You would think that this was how he continued to act, but no! In the thirty-sixth year of his reign when the northern kingdom, Israel, came to attack Judah, he never even asked his God what he should do. Instead he took treasures from the Temple and sent them to the king of Syria, begging him for help. It seemed to work—together they defended Judah. But then another message came to him through Hanani the seer, who told him:

“Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. ⁸ Were not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD, he gave them into your hand. ⁹ For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.” (2 Chr. 16:7-9 ESV)

This reveals that Asa was now self-confident, proud of his status and power. When he heard this rebuke he was so angry that he actually put Hanani in prison, then afflicted some of his own people too! Pride does go before a fall (Prov. 16.18). Three years later his feet became severely diseased, but even then he never asked the Lord Yahweh what to do. He died two years later.

If we seek our Lord, we too will find him:

But if you seek the LORD your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul. (Deut. 4:29 NET)

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. (Matt. 7:7 NET)

Jesus himself spoke those words handed down to us by Matthew and also Luke. But we must do that search for the right way forward sincerely, relying totally on him to answer us and guide us.

If we rely instead on our own strength and wisdom, we will stumble and make the wrong decision. Let’s not fall into that trap of proud self-sufficiency! Instead, let’s constantly turn our hearts to God, get to know him, listen to his voice and do what he says—in every situation! He will indeed always come through.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Prov. 3:5,6 NIV)