Confident HopeJesus Teaches about Hope
Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5) An Attitude of Gratitude2 Kings 7:3-12
The Message3-4 It happened that four lepers were sitting just outside the city gate. They said to one another, “What are we doing sitting here at death’s door? If we enter the famine-struck city, we’ll die; if we stay here, we’ll die. So let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us, we’ll live. If they kill us, we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose.” 5-8 So after the sun went down, they got up and went to the camp of Aram. When they got to the edge of the camp, surprise! Not a man in the camp! The Master had made the army of Aram hear the sound of horses and a mighty army on the march. They said to one another, “The king of Israel hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to attack us!” Panicked, they ran for their lives through the darkness, abandoning tents, horses, donkeys—the whole camp just as it was—running for dear life. These four lepers entered the camp and went into a tent. First, they ate and drank. Then they grabbed silver, gold, and clothing and went off and hid it. They came back, entered another tent, and looted it, again hiding their plunder. 9 Finally, they said to one another, “We shouldn’t be doing this! This is a day of good news, and we’re making it into a private party! If we wait around until morning, we’ll get caught and punished. Come on! Let’s go tell the news to the king’s palace!” 10 So they went and called out at the city gate, telling what had happened: “We went to the camp of Aram and, surprise!—the place was deserted. Not a soul, not a sound! Horses and donkeys left tethered, and tents abandoned just as they were.” 11-12 The gatekeepers got the word to the royal palace, giving them the whole story. Roused in the middle of the night, the king told his servants, “Let me tell you what Aram has done. They knew that we were starving, so they left camp and have hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we’ll capture them alive and take the city.’” For ReflectionFearful of being overrun, the Syrians fled their battle camp, leaving everything behind. Because of the application of God's law, the lepers could find no compassionate help for their suffering in the city. So they decided to appeal to the enemy as a last resort. To their surprise, they found the Syrian Camp empty. They took what they wanted, but fearing capture, they decided to take the good news of the Syrian retreat to the King, thus fulfilling God's promise of God.
God works in mysterious ways: stealing lepers, laws without compassion, marginalized people, hopelessness, prophesies, the expected and the unexpected, all conflated in God's perplexing confluence of not so coincidental coincidences.
PrayPray and allow yourself to be carried on the wings of God's paradoxes and wonder at God's works.
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