Our Eyes Are On You

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Transcript

A Dog’s Stare And A Need

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in the Word. I'm Ronnie Cooksie. Does your dog stare at you? Our dog Oliver, a big goofy labradoodle, stares at us a lot. Well, to be fair to Oliver, he can't do much for himself, can't open the door to go outside, can't pour his food, and on and on it goes. So he is very dependent on us, and his eyes are always watching us.

Jehoshaphat Faces Sudden Threat

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Well, we look at this phrase in Second Chronicles chapter twenty, verse twelve, and the background is that King Jehoshaphat is turning to the Lord because the enemy is coming against him. And when he hears about it, the enemy is only about fifty miles east of Jerusalem. They have advanced to Engedi. So he hears about it late in the game, and it's bad news, and it comes on suddenly. You ever have that? You ever make the mistake of checking your email at bedtime and there's some crisis that hits or a text message that hits you on the way home from vacation or worse on the way to vacation, on and on.

We Are Powerless But Watching God

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yes, we get some bad news sometimes and don't really know what to do. Well, let's learn from Jehoshaphat in verse twelve O our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on you. This is actually a good place to be. It doesn't feel like it. We don't like it, but here Jehoshaphat has admitted to God the truth that he is helpless. He cannot figure this out on his own. He cannot manufacture a solution, and so he turns to God. The truth is we have things all the time that are beyond us, bigger than we are, and more powerful than we are, but often we forget this crucial step of turning to God. I mean, he is the source of all the things that we need. And the biggest of those is our salvation. If he has met your largest need you'll ever have by dying in your place on the cross, what need do you have about which he does not care? Our health, you feel a little off, you go see the doctor, and then suddenly, boom, the diagnosis is shocking. A relationship issue suddenly seems to explode up. You go to work and every day is the same, and then boom, the bottom falls out from under you. On and on, these things hit us and we don't know what to do. And so the important thing is to let those things remind us to turn to the Lord. So important because praying to him is powerful, it's effective, and those crises actually draw us into a closer relationship with him. It may be that we'd rather read someone else's story about this, but God knows we need to experience it with him. And so he prays this beautiful prayer. We don't know what to do, our eyes

God’s Power And His Answers

SPEAKER_00 3:13

are on you. Now, why is this important to turn to God like this? Because he is limitless in his power and his ability. And so he made the laws of nature, and he can change them at any time. He can work miracle upon miracle, and so we need to turn to him to see what he will do in that situation and pray for the miraculous. And pray like Jehoshaphat did. He didn't tell God how to solve the problem. He didn't know how to solve the problem. And so here he is, helpless before a loving God. And God is going to answer his prayer in a mighty way. And sometimes God will answer the prayer by giving you instructions. This is what you need to do. And sometimes, so beautifully, God answers the prayer by just solving it in a way that you could never have done, you could never have accomplished on your own. And of course, we're reminded that sometimes the answer to the prayer is that God wants us to stay there in this situation a little longer as he walks through it with us.

A Prayer To Turn Fast To God

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I pray today that we can be people who are quick to take our problems to God, quick to call out to God, and let him know what he already knows, and let him know that we know we don't know what to do, but we're choosing to put our eyes on the Lord. When you do, he's going to surprise you in his timing, in his way. God bless you, and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow.