Day 183

2 Kings 4:38-6:23, Acts 21:27-22:21, Psalm 79:1-13

Well, we have just passed the half way mark, 183 days in.  Are you still going strong?

I’m not going to go into much detail as it is the kind of stuff that we have covered already, with the whole host of angels in chariots of fire lined up around Elisha. It is a very impressive image and I find that I am reading these things just when I need them most. It is a reminder that God has the same vast forces at his disposal for us and when we feel as though there is an army lined up against us, God is there for us, surrounding us with those chariots of fire. It is certainly an image I need to hold on to from time to time, do you?

There is also a lesson in listening to God, even if we think what He is saying is quite mundane. Naaman thought that if he was going to listen to a man of God then what he was going to have to do would be grand and supernatural. Instead he is told to go and wash himself and that will be it. Not quite the power and flashing lightening that he expected. Sometimes we expect God to talk in booming voices telling us to go and do the impossible in his name, but most of the time he doesn’t. Often, because we are listening for the big thing, we tend to miss the everyday things that God wants us to do. We even sometimes miss the people that he simply wants us to love in His name.

We don’t just miss what God wants us to do, we can sometimes miss God himself. In the Old Testament today there are 5 stories, two impressive miracles, then Naaman in the middle followed by another miracle and then the army of heaven. The story of Naaman though takes up the largest portion of the space. God still acts in the most wonderful of miracles, yet a lot of the time he is in the ordinary. When we stop looking in the ordinary then we stop looking for God.

The Jews were so blinded by hatred for the message that Paul brought that they failed to see their promised Messiah at the centre of that message. Is anything getting in the way for you? Getting in the way of you listening to what God wants you to do? Or getting in the way of you simply seeing God? Remember never to discount the ordinary everyday stuff, that may just be where God is lurking.