Articles
"Our Eyes Are on You"
Jehoshaphat was king of Judah in the mid-ninth century B.C. He reigned during the same time that the wicked Ahab ruled Israel. But unlike Ahab, Jehoshaphat was a righteous man who “sought the God of his father and followed His commands rather than the practices of Israel… His heart was devoted to the ways of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 17:4-6, NIV).
On one occasion, the combined forces of Moab and Ammon were preparing to invade Judah. Alarmed by this threat, King Jehoshaphat “turned his attention to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah” (2 Chronicles 20:3). A great assembly gathered at the temple in Jerusalem, where Jehoshaphat led the people in prayer. In that prayer, the king acknowledged God’s rule, His power, and His past deeds on behalf of Abraham’s descendants. He then spoke of the imminent invasion and pleaded for God to intervene.
Jehoshaphat concluded, “We are powerless against this great multitude…We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (verse 12).
“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.” There may not be a greater statement of faith in all the Bible. Jehoshaphat and the people of his tiny kingdom felt powerless in the face of the threat; but they knew God was not powerless, and so they put their trust in Him.
Have we learned to pray like Jehoshaphat? When the problem is too big…when the sorrow is too great…when the burden is too heavy…when we’re not even sure what to ask…when we don’t know what to do, will we pray anyway? Will we trust God’s power and goodness even when—no, especially when—we can’t see the way forward? Sometimes we can do little but plead for God’s mercy—to say, “I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on You.” And that’s alright. In fact, as Jehoshaphat reminds us, that really is not so little after all.
