When my daughter was around 2 years old, she had a pretty rag doll, Rosie, that she loved to bits. She took it everywhere with her, to every room in the house that she was in. Wherever she went, Rosie went too. Together they went to the park, to visit her friends, to the shops and, most importantly, to bed. They were best friends.
Then one day, when it was time to get ready for bed, she suddenly realised that she couldn’t find Rosie. We looked everywhere! We checked every room in the house, in the toy box, under the beds, and out in the garden. Rosie was nowhere to be found. If you have a child who is attached to something and it goes missing, you will understand how traumatic this was!
The following day, we traced all our steps and even called the places we visited the previous day to see if anyone had seen or handed in Rosie. We continued to search for Rosie at every opportunity but to no avail. Rosie had completely disappeared.
About 4 days later, I went into the garden to hang out the washing. With it being so early in the morning, I had not yet opened the lounge curtains. Properly. After the last item had been pegged on the ‘whirligig’, I picked up my basked and turned round to go back into the house and this was the image in front of me ………
There was Rosie, pegged to the back of the lounge curtains, right where she had been for the past 4 days! (genius!). If only I had opened my eyes earlier.
In the Bible, in the book of Kings 2, Chapter 6, where The King of Syria sets out to capture Elisha, God protects him. Initially, all Elisha’s servant can see is a huge army with horses and chariots preparing to come against just the two of them (Elisha and his servant). The servant obviously starts to panic (think I would too!) but Elisha reassures him and says, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.”
Now this might have seemed a bit weird to the servant as he probably thought his eyes were already open and was pretty sure they were alone against this vast army. How could Elisha be so confident as to tell him not to fear? But then, this happened:
"Then 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."
Wow! Imagine being there in that moment, when your spiritual eyes are opened and all you can see around you is the protection of God. Imagine feeling that God values you enough to do this for you.
Whatever you face today, remember that we can’t always see the full picture but know that just like Elisha and the servant, God has you covered and those that are with you are more than you could dream or imagine.
“If our eyes were opened, we should see the angel-hosts as an encircling fence of fire; but whether we see them or not, they are certainly there.” (Meyer)
Remember, you are never alone and when your spiritual eyes are opened, you will have a completely different view.
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