Outnumbered X

 Ahab did everything in his power to ensure that the word Micaiah spoke would not come to pass. He disguised himself in another man’s robes, kept himself from the front lines, and even insisted that Jehoshaphat wear his robes, hoping he would draw the enemy’s fire. Not a friendly gesture, but one born of selfishness and an overriding need for self-preservation. He wanted to prove Micaiah wrong if it was the last thing he did, not realizing that Micaiah was just the messenger. The message had come from the Lord.

Ahab did everything but the one thing he could have done, which was heed the word of the Lord and repent of his folly. We acknowledge the world is falling apart in real-time, we look for a remedy, God says repent, and we say no thanks. We think we can fix it on our own without humbling ourselves. We think we can circumvent the iceberg without God’s aid or assistance because we’re resilient and self-motivated. Others in generations past might have been too weak-willed to be the masters of their destinies, but not us, no sir, we’ll show You!

We look at Ahab’s actions and scratch our heads in bewilderment, not realizing that we are often guilty of the same thing. The Lord speaks a word, and rather than submit and act accordingly we do everything in our power to try and prove Him wrong. It never succeeds, but we still try.

Doing what God commands would mean humbling ourselves, and even though the Word tells us that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, we’d rather roll the dice and go our own way.

When I was younger and still had hair, I had a friend who was smitten with a young lady. He was a believer, she wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him from going and inquiring of the Lord as to whether he should make an honest woman out of her and propose marriage. He asked if I knew anywhere we could go to prayer, and since I did, we went to a prayer meeting not far away, and the Lord spoke to him through a vessel that was present.

We showed up on a random day, two random people among a handful of others, sang a couple of hymns, and then knelt to pray. There was no exchanging of information; my friend didn’t explain why we were there, so the vessel had no way of knowing what issue needed clarification. The message was as clear as could be: “The path which you desire to take is not the path I have chosen for you. I have prepared a better way for you, and you will see it in due course.”

He knew what he’d gone to the prayer meeting for; the vessel didn’t. It’s one of those details that matter because if you go to someone telling them of your problems, you’re asking them for an opinion. If you’re going to hear a word from the Lord, God already knows what’s on your heart; you don’t need to go into detail. If the vessel is of the Lord, the word will come forth without you having to explain the situation at length.

The desire of his heart was to know if he was supposed to proceed or not, and yet, after the prayer meeting, he began to go on and on about the possibility that this was not what the word was referring to but something else. I told him it seemed pretty clear to me. He gave me a dirty look, and we drove home in silence.

A few weeks later, I received the wedding invitation. The Lord had spoken, he had not heeded, and he’d gone ahead with the plans of his heart even though he had been warned. When I asked him why he’d bothered to seek a word from the Lord if he was already determined to do what he’d done, he shrugged his shoulders and said he was hoping God would cosign his decision. If you’re not fully committed to following through and heeding what God speaks to you, there’s no point in seeking a word from Him. At that point, you’re just tempting God, and once a word is given and you refuse to obey it, you are in rebellion.

My friend was fully assured that he could change her, that his love would win out, and all I could do was give him a sympathetic look because I’d seen this drama play out repeatedly, just with different faces at different times.

Less than two years later, she ran off with an Italian fellow who promised her the moon and the stars, and my friend was devastated, heartbroken, and bitter. Who was he bitter at? You guessed it: not himself or his disobedience but at God for not doing something He never promised He would and who had warned him against this course.

Don’t blame God for doing things He specifically told you not to do when they leave you bruised and broken. He was trying to spare you, but you thought you knew better.

The king of Syria had thirty-two captains of his chariots to whom he gave one order: “Fight with no one small or great, but only with the king of Israel.” Ahab was his target, and everyone else was irrelevant as far as he was concerned. In his own right, Ahab thought he’d outsmarted and outwitted the plan of God, and for a second there, as he saw the chariots chasing after Jehoshaphat, he thought he’d succeeded. Then, a certain man drew a bow at random and let loose. He wasn’t targeting anyone specifically, but his arrow found the space between Ahab’s armor and struck true.

It wasn’t aimed or calculated. Ahab was not his target because Ahab had disguised himself, and the archer had no way of knowing he’d just mortally wounded the king of Israel, but he had. One arrow loosed at random by an archer brought the whole reign of Ahab to a screeching halt.

When you’re not walking in obedience, when you’re not walking in God’s will, it doesn’t take a giant to trounce you. All it takes is a random arrow that will find the space between the joints of your armor and leave you gasping for breath. You can’t outsmart God. Whatever loopholes one thinks they might have found to force God’s hand or circumvent His will are wholly imaginary and have no basis in fact. Ahab found this out the hard way, the cost of it being his life.

It’s been proven often enough that majority consensus can be wrong. Just because a majority of people are saying a particular thing, it doesn’t automatically make them right by virtue of being in the majority. This is doubly true for those who claim to be messengers sent by God, whose words contradict His words, and whose visions of future glory would undermine His nature were they to come to pass.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.