It was a morning like any other. The prophet’s servant got up and, like Jack and Jill, went to fetch a pail of water. As he was rubbing the sleep from his eyes he looked around and realized that this was no ordinary day. He and his master were in deep and immediate danger. They were surrounded by ‘the enemy’. All seemed very bleak, as he called Elisha out to see their approaching doom!
Elisha though saw things differently. Yes, he saw the enemy, but he saw beyond that to the Lord’s provision for him. He was not disquieted, but out of concern for his frantic companion he prayed that his eyes too might be opened to see a deeper reality beyond the mere reality.
It seems that it is all a matter of how you look at things.
For those who have citizenship in the Kingdom of God, there is a deeper reality that is truer than the mere reality we see around us! Too often, though we like Elisha’s servant are so alarmed at the mere reality, for it seems anything but mere to us, that we forget and neglect the truer deeper reality of the Kingdom.
Like Peter on the stormy sea we lower our gaze to the swelling waves and soon find ourselves engulfed. Like him we call out in dread for rescue and graciously our God responds.
How much better though if we could see past the mere to the deep reality. Rather than settling for human vision we can trust in God’s provision.
In my experience there is not a circumstance, no matter how terrible, through which God can not and does not work.
Every morning when I look in the mirror I see a face marred and scarred. I see the damage which seems so permanent, yet I know that in the deeper reality I became a humbler and more spiritual person as a result. The phrase we hear these days is “Build back better” and God does that! God does not build back in the mere reality so much as He does in the deep reality.
Paul speaks about being persecuted but not abandoned struck down but not destroyed … so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”. He knows as Elisha knows that mere reality is nothing to compare with the deep reality of the glory of God the King and his Kingdom.
All this leads us to the place where we must confront the question of “which Kingdom captures my heart?” Will I fall (as I so easily can) into captivity of the mere kingdom of this temporal and temporary world, or will I allow myself to be enthralled by the glorious Kingdom God is fitting me for?
My prayer today is “Lord open my eyes.” I long to see the real reality not the mere.
Hope & Reedemption 