The Lifter of My head!

He is the Lifter of my Head! 

Have you ever been in a situation where you have been patient with God to the limits, to a break up point, to a position where you questioned your beliefs…you have fasted for days and prayed incessantly but still there seems to be no answer yet. Have you ever felt like you cannot go on? Have you ever felt like you cannot trust on God one day more?  Yeah? Then this may be the story for you. It’s a true story filled with despair, heartache and death. If that does not do it for you then let me add that after plummeting to the depths of despair, the story shall also rise to the greatest heights of God-given deliverance and joy. When the tide is changing and your biggest test becomes a life changing testimony. It has the valley of the shadow of death, but also the green pastures and still waters. The lows and highs of this story may just mirror your very own life. So if you are currently faced with difficulties that stretch your faith to breaking point I would ask you to read on.

I am reminded of a story in the Holy Bible in the book of 2 Kings Chapter 6 where Samaria was under siege.  There was a great famine in that city and it lasted so long that the prices for commodities had hit the rooftops. The King happened to pass by the city and a woman cried to him saying, “Help me, my lord the King!” The King replied, “If the Lord (GOD) does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor?  From the winepress? ”  What follows next is a shocking depth of desperation shown by this woman when she killed her own son for food! The woman reveals to the King that she had come to an agreement with another woman to eat her son because of the prevailing hunger and the other woman was to do the same with her own son but she hid him when her turn came.  On hearing the woman’s confession the King  was pushed past breaking point… In what is probably the bleakest and most horrific story in the Old Testament, the king hears that this mother became so desperate that she cooked her own son for food. Unbelievable… We can barely imagine the severity and utter desperation of this situation and I am viewing it from the fact that I am a mother!

In this story the city of Samaria is holding on for as long as it can but things are getting too desperate. On crying out for help to the king, a woman is told ‘If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you?’ There are times in everyone’s life when all natural support seems to be cut off. This was it for Samaria and the King knew it. He had no extra wheat to feed his people and it was now at the point where it was God or nothing. Can you imagine the pressure these people where under?

Then the blame game begins when the King is literally angry with Elisha to a point of wanting him dead. Elisha was a prophet and earlier on had given the King a warning of things to come but he had also assured the King that God would deliver and all there was to it was to wait on God. But the King had waited…and waited until he could wait no longer. We see a story of a King who had waited… repented… wore sackcloth in a sign of humility before God… But still nothing. No answer, no sign of help yet. “Off with Elisha’s head” the king says. “I’m not waiting one minute more… this disaster is from the Lord! You lied to me Elisha” 

Have you ever got to that point? The king blamed Elisha for their trouble but maybe you have been blaming God? Have you got to the point where you have decided that you can wait no longer and must act? You have been seeking the Lord praying, fasting and reading the Bible looking for an answer… and the only reply you have got is silence. Maybe you’ve had a promise from God earlier in your life and now years have passed and, like Abraham, you now feel that you should take matters into your own hands to try bring about an answer? Well, if that is you, you are not alone and I have been there too, where my patience and my waiting on God has been tested to the utter limits. The king and the woman who cooked her son in this story are with you in the need to take matters into your own hands.

As the story develops, we see Elisha proclaiming the God of impossibilities and prophesies that by this time tomorrow the siege would be over and there would be plenty to eat. An officer to the King does not believe this and has his doubts. Can God really work so fast? We’ve waited for so long and did everything to please God and nothing happened. How can it be so that within 24 hours we will have plenty to eat? His lack of faith in God’s ability to do such a wonderful thing gets an immediate response from Elisha – “You will see it, but you won’t participate in it!”

Let me bring this back home to me and you. Like me you may have got something that is a real trial and a test for you right now? If so, then don’t give up just yet. The waves may come but the word of God proclaims that there is an anchor that will keep you firm and secure. Do you know what that anchor is? Do you know what it is that keeps your soul stable? It is HOPE based upon the unchanging nature and faithfulness of God. Let’s not be like the officer who just can’t see how God could or would bring victory where there was defeat. He doubted God’s ability, God’s willingness and God’s promise. Beware the unbelief that may lie within your soul. Unfortunately, it comes so very easy to a fallen humanity. Always remember, as we shall soon see, that God is very, very, resourceful and always faithful! God can always make a way!

Waiting is always a hard thing especially to the Y-generation where we are accustomed to ’INSTANTS’. In my experience God often makes us wait longer than we would like and He is often more silent than we would like. However I would like to encourage you to keep on trusting God in his appointed time He will make all things beautiful .All that God has promised you, be assured like Elisha that it will come to pass and no matter how long it takes! He is the lifter of our heads, Sovereign Lord!