Episode #377 God, What Am I Missing About This Situation? – Practicing Conversations With God

Most of us were taught how to learn about God, but not how to live aware of Him in daily moments. And so that's part of what we're practicing here as we enter into these uncommon conversations with God, as you're on your commute, or sitting in a school pickup line, or running errands, or cleaning up your home. We're not coming to Him trying to be perfect or perform for Him, but we're coming honestly and attentively and relationally, believing that He is our good God, and He will talk with us.

And today, we're approaching God to see what we might be missing in a situation that we're going through. I'm gonna read for us a story that's recorded in 2 Kings 6, and there's some tough circumstances that are going on for Elisha and his servant. And the crux of this story is that there was more happening there than Elisha's servant initially realized. And I'm gonna pick it up in verse 12, where an enemy king is trying to find Elisha because God is giving Elisha insight into Israel's enemy's plans, and their enemy wants to stop it. Itsays, "Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. And he," the king, "said, 'Go and see where he is, that I might send and seize him.' It was told to him, 'Behold, he is in Dothan.' So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, 'Alas, my master! What shall we do?' He," Elisha, "said, 'Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.'" Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see."

So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

And they go on, and God miraculously offers them a victory. But I wanna focus here on this prayer that Elisha prays. "O Lord, open his eyes that he may see."

We, as humans on earth, live in these two kinda conflicting realities. We live here in a temporal, finite, tangible world. We go through difficult circumstances. We have ups and downs and triumphs and losses. And we also live in the reality of who God is and who He says that we are. We are living as Christians in this eternal reality. We are part of God's kingdom, and so we live with both of those things at the same time. And sometimes our tangible, finite world can overwhelm our awareness of the greater reality that we have in God. And so we get to live here with an awareness that this is not our home, and that there is more that's going on than what we can see with our natural eyes.

And so we're taking that invitation, we're taking that concept, into conversation with God today to see what He might share with us. He might draw our attention to tangible, human, finite things. Or He might also give us an illuminated perspective, opening our eyes to see in the Spirit, in the Kingdom, in the bigger picture, things that up until right now have been outside of our awareness.

And so I invite you, consider a circumstance, a situation in your life, and take that to God and ask Him this question:

God, will you open my eyes? What am I missing about this situation?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

Connect with Jen on Instagram