God's Protection

 

    God's protection is a mystery.  He protects all His creations in one way or another.  Even death can be a merciful gift.  He provides protection in numeral ways.  He gave us a mind to use to keep ourselves out of trouble.  He provides knowledge and wisdom where it is needed or sought.  He provides food to fight to keep us healthy or heal us.  He provides miracles.  He provides heroes.  

    There are so many ways he protects us everyday.  However, there are only a few people in this world where you can see clearly the hand of God is protecting them in a big way.  Elisha was one of these obvious people and he got there by his faith.  God saved his life many times, He was also there in the small moments of needing to be saved.  God saved Elisha from evil men that wanted to harm him.  

    Four lepers decided to surrender the Aramean army at dusk.  They were dying anyway, so what was the worst that could happen?  They were diseased and the famine was only speeding up their upcoming death and discomfort.  When they arrived, they discovered that the army had fled leaving everything behind.

    What the four lepers did not know was that God's army was behind this gift.  God's had the Arameans to hear His army and they were so afraid that they left everything behind.  The lepers had all the food that they wanted.  They ate and drank to their content, then hid some silver and gold for their protection.  

    Since it was a time of famine, they felt guilty keeping the "good news" to themselves.  They went back to the city in which they would never be allowed to enter,  They did not even wait until morning.  They yelled at the gatekeeper what had happened.  Basically, free food, water, livestock, and money.  They did good for people that shunned them out of fear.

    The king thought this was a trick, but when he found out that it wasn't he allowed  the people to plunder the enemy camp.  Elisha had told a soldier that the city would be saved with the exact amount of food, but he did not believe.  That man was trampled to death when the people discovered their salvation.  

    It is kind of strange to think that maybe God orchestrated this whole ordeal to save Elisha's life along with an entire city.  That is how good the Living God is.  The metaphor on not having faith also is not lost on me.

2 Kings 7