The Fourth Wall - Day 18
2 Kings
3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”
I don’t know if you have read this story before, but when I first came upon it, I laughed out loud at these men with leprosy. Not because they were funny or because leprosy is funny, but because these guys had figured something out that no one else had. They figured out that they had very few good choices, and so they decided that they should figure out what is the best of a bad situation and move forward in that direction.
These four guys showed some chutzpah, as it is known in Yiddish. This means that they have some self-confidence or even audacity to move forward in this situation. They were willing to trust the Aramean army even before they were interested in trusting their own people. They didn’t think either option was great, but at least they were willing to give it a try.
Have you ever had to choose between two bad choices? What did that make you feel like? And how did that go for you? Interestingly, these poor guys had to decide between their own people and the invading army, and they chose the other army.
Sometimes, being desperate gives you a moment for real reflection and serious soul-searching. Without a positive option, but just a chance, you might find yourself having to lean into the mercy and grace of God, and when you do this, a whole new reality might show up and teach you something you never knew before. You might just find out that God is still working things out for you, and the situation might not be as desperate as you thought originally.
When you think back to those difficult choices, where it felt like you really didn't have any choice at all, how did you find yourself leaning into hope? Faith and hope are often words that go together. When we don’t have anywhere else to turn, we turn to hope, which is not knowing the outcome, but believing that there may be a choice we didn’t actually know about before.
3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”
I don’t know if you have read this story before, but when I first came upon it, I laughed out loud at these men with leprosy. Not because they were funny or because leprosy is funny, but because these guys had figured something out that no one else had. They figured out that they had very few good choices, and so they decided that they should figure out what is the best of a bad situation and move forward in that direction.
These four guys showed some chutzpah, as it is known in Yiddish. This means that they have some self-confidence or even audacity to move forward in this situation. They were willing to trust the Aramean army even before they were interested in trusting their own people. They didn’t think either option was great, but at least they were willing to give it a try.
Have you ever had to choose between two bad choices? What did that make you feel like? And how did that go for you? Interestingly, these poor guys had to decide between their own people and the invading army, and they chose the other army.
Sometimes, being desperate gives you a moment for real reflection and serious soul-searching. Without a positive option, but just a chance, you might find yourself having to lean into the mercy and grace of God, and when you do this, a whole new reality might show up and teach you something you never knew before. You might just find out that God is still working things out for you, and the situation might not be as desperate as you thought originally.
When you think back to those difficult choices, where it felt like you really didn't have any choice at all, how did you find yourself leaning into hope? Faith and hope are often words that go together. When we don’t have anywhere else to turn, we turn to hope, which is not knowing the outcome, but believing that there may be a choice we didn’t actually know about before.
- Have you ever been desperate?
- Did God show up?
- If so, how? If not, why not?
- How can you lean into hope more consistently in your life?
Pastor Timothy Gillespie
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