Windows
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president
What battle is outside your window? When the prophet Elisha was on his death bed, the king of Israel visited and wept over him. The king was not a true follower of God and had been worshiping idols. However, when he heard that Elisha was dying he went to see him.
In 2 Kings 13:15-17, Elisha told the king to take an arrow and shoot it out of the east window. Elisha placed his weathered hands on the king’s hands as the arrow was notched in the bow and he prepared to shoot. The king pulled back the string and released the arrow on its flight out of the east window. The east window was chosen because it was where the Syrians had most recently won the battle with the Israelites.
When the arrow had flown out of the window Elisha prophesied that the king would gain the victory over Syria. Elisha then told the king to take the arrows and strike the ground. The king halfheartedly hit the ground three times and was admonished by Elisha for not aggressively hitting the ground to signify complete victory over the Syrians.
There are lessons for all of us from this story. First, we need to ask what battles are going on outside of the windows in our life. There could be battles in the windows of our lives, the windows of our neighborhoods and the windows of churches and schools. Then with God’s hands guiding us we need to take aim at those battles. Through God’s guidance we can say that these battles will not be lost in our neighborhood. They will be fought and won with God’s help.
The second thing is to be aggressive and not stop striking the arrows on the ground until God tells us to stop. Keep facing the battles outside of our windows and say God give us the victory!
There are people in our communities that need us to fight for them and their spiritual lives. There are people that need us to take aim with God’s guidance and say we are here to fight till the victory is won. Total member involvement is each one of us looking out of the windows around us, engaging with God’s help in the battles to win for Jesus, and to keep at it with determination to full victory.