I am ever amazed and in awe how much God strongly desires to be God in our lives, Ps. 46:10. His Word is peppered with scriptures that express His desire to love us, protect us, heal us, and bless us. In fact, Is. 30:18 states that He longs to be gracious to us. And yet, we tend to be painfully unaware of these longings of our Father. Ignorance is certainly one reason; pride the other. But the bottom line is this: we want to be god of our own lives. So we tend to spurn God, reject His loving advances and turn our backs on Him. Why do we do these things? We erroneously think that humility and service is a sign of weakness. Our pride has us believe that we have the ability to make right decisions, that we control our destiny, and that we should have what we desire. And therein lies the problem: we seek our glory rather than God's.

But I am going to assume that you have already come to the conclusion that you need God to be God in your life. Why? Because you recognize your own misgivings, failures and personal sins. You recognize your weaknesses and impotence in overcoming the world, the flesh and the
devil. Too many times your own pride has mocked you, your strength failed you and you found
yourself lacking. Such revelation can be a blessing if it results in humility, which is often birthed from self-loathing, Ezek. 36:31. "Self-loathing" comes from seeing ourselves as God sees us outside the Sphere of Faith- filled to the brim with pride, self-importance, and selfish ambition-a state where we are nothing but worms. Let us never fall victim to our own "spin" about how wonderful we are. Remember, all you and I deserve is eternal death.

Now one such person who knew who he was, humble in heart and soul, was Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. The Word describes Jehoshaphat as he who "followed the example of his father David's earlier days and did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father, followed His commandments..." 2 Chr. 17:3,4. Yet like all who pledge their faith in God, Jehoshaphat was tested.

JEHOSHAPHAT FOCUSES ON GOD

Now it came about that Jehoshaphat was given overwhelming news that the sons of Moab and the sons of Ammon, together with some of the Meunites were headed his way with the intent of destroying him and taking his people captive (2 Chr. 20:2). He rightfully came to the conclusion he was powerless to stop these advancing forces. So he turned to one more powerful than all armies combined: God, the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He held fast to Him and looked up to heaven and said, "we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on Thee," 2 Chr. 20:12. By turning from self to God, he had taken the first step to realizing victory.

"My eyes are on Thee, O God", Jehoshaphat proclaimed. And that is exactly where our eyes and focus and attention must be-upon the living God. We are ever taught to "seek God." But we are a stubborn bunch led by our flesh and emotions. So we come up short finding God. (Some would even suggest "there is no God" based on such a shallow search.) But God has a great tool to help us and push us in the right direction. That tool is a "distressful situation". These situations are quite capable of breaking down pride and reducing our ego and leading us to seek God and His solutions. You might say the greater the distress, the more we press into God. And that's God's point, right? But that's another study. Just remember, nothing is impossible with God. No difficulty is too great for Him. Nothing is outside His reach. In fact, the more difficult a situation is with you and I, the greater pleasure God has in bringing us the solution. But, we must reach out to Him.

Jehoshaphat cried out to God, and God heard Jehoshaphat. Through his prophet, God told Jehoshaphat, "be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's." Like most announcements from God when His people are in difficult circumstances, He immediately reassures us, "Do not fear."