Refuse To Be Moved

Refuse to Be Moved

There were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha. 2 Kings 6:15

ELISHA’S SERVANT COULD SEE ONLY ADVERSARIES, and they were very real. But they weren’t the ultimate reality. Like the rest of us, he was used to living by sight. Our minds have been well trained in interpreting visible circumstances as truth. We look at what is happening around us and take it at face value.

That’s a rookie mistake in the life of faith. We hear a report, encounter a setback, experience adversity, and get discouraged that things are going in the wrong direction. But in matters of faith, the wrong direction is often the right direction, just as we’ve seen with Joseph, who seemed to be sent in the opposite direction of his dreams on multiple occasions but was actually headed toward them the entire way. We have a financial crisis and wonder why God isn’t providing for us; we get lab results and wonder why he isn’t healing us; we’re halted at a closed door and wonder why he hasn’t opened it. All the while, God may be leading us into that important phase of the journey in which we have nothing but our faith to stand on. The life of faith is a constant process of taking our eyes off of appearances and fixing them on God and his words. Our visible circumstances are not the truth of a situation.

This is not the same as living in denial, except in the sense of denying appearances that are contrary to what God has said. It is not the same as living in a fantasy world, indulging in wishful thinking we’ve come up with on our own. We don’t just make up the reality we want to have. Faith means anchoring ourselves to God’s promises, to the truths he has told us in his word, to the vision, purpose, and calling he has given us, and rejecting any outward appearance that contradicts these truths. We have to decide where we are going to fix our gaze and then refuse to be distracted by circumstances and visible discouragements. People may think we’re escaping reality. According to God, we’re walking straight into it.

Seeing is not believing. Seeing is seeing. Believing is being confident without seeing.