When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. -II Kings 6:15-17
"What do you do for a living?" the middle seat passenger asked.
You really should see how many people flinch when I tell them I'm a workplace chaplain. I suspect they're afraid I'm about to browbeat them for Jesus. Usually, though, they just can't help themselves. Because they've never heard of workplace chaplains, curiosity gets the better of them and we almost always settle into an enlightening discussion.
On this particular flight, this particular passenger discovered he was sandwiched in between two Christians, so I'm pretty sure he was praying to a god he didn't know to put us both to sleep. Which, of course, didn't happen.
Gradually, the three of us warmed to each other and we ended up talking about whether God pays attention to our work. My fellow Christian in the window seat had an optimistic answer, pointing to the progress in technology and the advances in medicine and the creation of tools that made life easier. These, he assured us, were evidence things were getting better and better as humans understood more about life and more about God.
Our non-Christian seatmate took quite the opposite view, and he seemed genuinely offended at the optimism just expressed. Picking up his newspaper, he moved through the national news and then the business sections and finally even to the local section pointing to story after story after story that argued against the "better-world" theory. Then he dropped his voice, and whispered to us quietly: "I frankly think your God is losing."
I thought about his answer carefully. I marveled at how close to the truth-and how far from the truth-he was in his reply.
While the media pummels us with evidence of the dark and seamy sides of life, it's the brokenness behind the façade of busy working faces that tells the story even more poignantly. Workers aren't just workers. They are husbands with distant wives, parents with distant children, children with ailing parents. They're struggling to pay bills, rescue the mortgage, and find health care. Some are lonely, many are depressed, and more than a few are convinced God isn't even interested in the battles they're fighting.
So yes, this world with its sin-stained side effects is finding old ways to make new cultures squirm. And yes, the struggle can sometimes make even long-time Christians wonder if we aren't outgunned and outmaneuvered.
That's when we must ask God to show us the chariots of fire. We struggle not, the Apostle Paul says, with "flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12)
For a time, God holds His power and judgment in check, pulling His punches in mercy while Satan taunts Him and His Creation with evil and its influence. That's when we're tempted to take our eyes off our Savior, and we're easily persuaded things are good enough; or conversely, that things are just too bad, too dark, too hopeless. That's when we must look to the hills and see the chariots of fire in the story of Elisha, reminding us we serve the King of King and Lord of Lords, who loved us so much He suffered our fate to free us from despair and destruction.
Only then will false optimism be replaced by real hope, found in service to the only reality that isn't bound by time and space. Only then will we remember "those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
--Randy Kilgore
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