Wednesday November 9, 2016
Battling Impatience
-2 KINGS 6:24-33
Key Verse:
"And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver" (2 Kings 6:25).
One enduring lessons you get for being in God's school is patience. Not possessing it amounts to failing a critical test as a believer. This was the undoing of Israel's first king, Saul. He would not wait for Samuel to perform the sacrifice when a challenge came his way. This led to his fall. Many years later, lack of patience was the undoing of another king and two women in the northern kingdom of Samaria during a time of severe famine following a siege by Syria. The women resorted to cannibalism. After one of them had offered her son for meal as the food shortage bit hard, the other refused to give up her own child. Both were impatient to wait for God's intervention. King Jehoram was not spared the disease of impatience. He sought to kill Prophet Elisha, whom he erroneously blamed for Israel's predicament. All the land was afflicted and the people ate what came their way. An ass head, which even in peace time nobody would eat, became a delicacy. Yet all they needed was to simply pray and dwell on God's unfailing promises and how He took care of similar situations in the past. In the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, drought drove the people to God and He did not disappoint them. If these people of Samaria and their king had exercised patience and faith in God, they would not have taken the rash decision that compounded their troubles, because just after they did this, God stepped into their predicament and brought "a day of good tidings" that even lepers ate and drank and possessed silver, gold and raiment. God used His prophet to bring the good news, but unbelief, a manifestation of impatience, cost a king's aid his life. The impatient Christian has not absorbed the full teaching in God's College. He needs to take one more trip to the cross at Calvary and be washed clean of the hasty spirit governing him.
Thought for the day: Be patient in tribulation (Romans 12:12).
Bible Reading in one Year: LAMENTATIONS 1 - 3
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