What do you do when life comes at you 100+ miles per hour and your internal alarm bells are clanging loudly and will not be silenced? 

You’ve been there, right?  Perhaps you are there right now.  . . . Bad news just arrived from the doctor.  . . . Word has been circulating for weeks that the company is in trouble and jobs will have to be eliminated.  . . . A “good friend” has betrayed the confidence you placed in them and has begun to “share” private information with others — information that will damage, even destroy, your reputation.  . . . God has been speaking to you heavily through His Spirit and His Word about taking a stand for Him in your neighborhood and you know some people won’t like the transformation that could take place.  . . . On the list could go. 

We each have our list of alarming events, don’t we?  I remember (somewhat clearly) being so sick twenty some years ago that I often struggled just to get out of bed each day.  The doctors were coming up with no answers and I was alarmed — so afraid that the worst of the worst must be happening to me.  I think that may have just been preparation because it was even more alarming when the Mayo Clinic doctor finally said, “You have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  There is nothing we can do for you.  Goodbye!”  So long and have good life.  I hope it works out for you.  Wow!  If they couldn’t do anything to improve my physical health, then I was in bad shape.  How alarming!

I also remember, even more clearly, a month my wife and I spent at the Ronald McDonald House at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital.  Obviously not a normal vacation spot for most families.  No, this was a visit brought about by a trip with our daughter to a local ER for an ongoing seizure that ended with her kidneys and liver shutting down and a quick ride to Chicago.  Alarming enough?  I thought so.  Then, as the doctor worked methodically to discover the reason for her body shutting down and the ensuing coma, he finally calls us into a conference room and says, “There is nothing more we can do.”  Okay, now we’re at alarming.  Five-alarm alarming!  How do you respond to that?  What do you do when life seems to be all stacked up against you and you are afraid?

How about when you are under attack?  . . . When the enemy is coming at you full force and nothing can stand in its way?  . . . When an army is coming out to destroy you and take everything you have — an army so vast that its reputation strikes fear into everyone long before it arrives?  . . . Oh, wait.  . . . That sounds familiar.  . . . That was yesterday’s text in our “A View From The Top:  What Does God Say” study.  In 2 Chronicles chapter twenty, we find that very scenario laid out before us.  It was a frightening time for Judah and its king, Jehoshaphat, as reports arrived of this “vast army” coming to attack.  So, what did Jehoshaphat do?  What can we learn from his actions? 

Jehoshaphat began by recognizing his fear and dealing with it appropriately.  We read in 2 Chronicles 20:3-4, “Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all of Judah.  The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.”  Yes, Jehoshaphat was alarmed.  He had every reason to be.  Yet in his fear, he made a decision that he would not waver from.  He resolved to ask God what was up.  He wasn’t approaching God with his list of demands, rather he was “resolved to inquire of the Lord”.  His resolve gathered the whole nation around him to fast and seek God — that He would be heard and listened to.  As the nation gathers in prayer and fasting, Jehoshaphat leads them in seeking God and calling on Him to take care of this situation as only He can.  Jehoshaphat lays out before God their trust in Him, their obedience to Him, their reliance on Him as their deliverer.  He acknowledges that on their own, they are helpless before this invading force.  So, as the nation gathers before God, they say, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”  We don’t have an answer, but we trust that you, God, have one.  We’re not going to make up a solution on our own rather we will fix our eyes on God and expect Him to give the plan.  And so it is in this time of expectation that, “All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.”  (1 Chronicles 20:13) 

As the nation stands before the Lord seeking His instructions, God speaks through the Spirit of the Lord on a man, Jahaziel.  God’s message in the midst of this alarming situation was, “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll fight this one for you.”  God instructs the people to take up their battle positions and to stand firm.  Stand firm — not to fight, but to be spectators and worshippers as God wins the victory and defeats the enemy army.  And so they do.  The people go out to their positions singing, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”  2 Chronicles 20:22-23 says, “As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.  The Ammonites and Moabites rose up against the men of Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them.  After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.”  . . . They helped to destroy one another?  . . . Helped who?  . . . Whose battle was it?  . . . Who would be claiming the victory?  . . . God had said the battle was His.  He had fought the battle and the victory belonged to Him.  As God’s people sang and praised Him, He enlisted the enemy to help destroy one another.  What a powerful, Almighty God!

Now, back to you and me.  I’ve seen this power, how about you?  In those alarming times of life, I am getting better at seeking Him but have room for improvement.  I can look back and see times of growth.  Twenty-some years ago as I struggled with the attack on my physical health, I tried to deal with the fear and unknown on my own.  It took a gentle and loving God to draw me to the point of seeking Him in the midst of my battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  It’s funny, but somewhere along the journey I learned to seek Him and trust Him with that and it slowly and gradually became a non-issue.  I learned a lot through it and it definitely helped prepare me for the things God was calling me to do and somewhere in that process of learning and preparing, it lost its power over me. 

Oh, I left a little bit out earlier in describing our alarming news at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital.  The doctor did come in and say, “There is nothing more we can do.”  But he also continued by saying, “We can pray.  It’s the only thing that keeps some of our patients alive over at the county hospital.  Here, we rely too much on our technology when we ought to pray.”  Wow!  The five-alarm alarming comes and the reminder to seek God comes from a very unexpected source.  And so we do.  We seek God and acknowledge our trust in Him and His ownership of our daughter.  We stand before Him and watch, knowing that He cares for our daughter even more than we do and He can see the results of her life continuing just as clearly as He can see the results of it ending.  So, as we waited — as we praised God for His presence — our daughter began to improve.  Over then next few days and weeks, her condition began to stabilize; allowing the doctors to do work and procedures that her frail body would not handle when we first arrived.  For weeks, her condition was back and forth.  Then she finally woke up.  Her kidneys and liver began their return to normal function.  Dialysis was ended and we left that hospital with a daughter that needed physical therapy and rehab, but with normal functioning kidneys and liver and we had a renewed reminder that this precious child was indeed a gift from God. 

Wow!  This post has gotten long, but once I get started on how God has taught me — and continues to teach me — to be resolved to seek Him during alarming times; I have a hard time stopping. 

So, when life comes at you and me 100+ miles per hour and the alarm bells are clanging loudly and refuse to be silenced, God calls us to seek Him as the Almighty One.  When we are alarmed, may you and I be resolved to inquire of the Lord.  May we stand firm and watch God deliver us in, through, or around, the alarming situation in our life.