King Jehoram and king Jehoshaphat of Judah had gone 7 days without water as they traveled to battle the King of Moab. They we dying of dehydration and in panic they called out to Elisha. Elisha responded, “Make this valley full of ditches. For this is what the Lord says. “You will not see wind, or rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water, that you can drink, you and all your cattle and beasts.” “And this is easy for the Lord, He will also help you conquer the Moabites.” (2 kings 3:16-18)
I felt God speak today that He is calling me to dig ditches. To move forward in trust and not to worry about “how” it will work but just dig as wide and deep as I can. (Read his word, pray fervently, mediate deeply, and praise his name unashamedly). I will not see the rain or how he will provide but I need to rise up early to see what he has done! (2 kings 3:22) “And they arose up early in the morning and the sun shone upon all the water.”
I believe God is trying to help me see the value and worth in digging. (Doing the hard things, getting up at 5:30am to sit with Him, pouring my heart out in prayer over the pain and uncertainty in my life ) I’m sure the parched Israelites didn’t understand why they were digging ditches. This grueling work and blistered hands didn’t make sense as they were dying of thirst!? Couldn’t Elisha just hit a rock or something and let water pour out onto the ground! But the act of digging, the action of trust, then was rewarded with exactly what they needed: refreshing water, but then more! They arose to the beautiful sight of the sun gleaming on the water and then they defeated Moab!
I am so thankful for a God that is willing to meet me, to stand by me with his arm around my shoulder, pointing towards the shining water and saying, “Can you see what I’ve done? You dug the ditches and now I’ve filled them!”
It is interesting to think of how the Israelites must have felt when they awoke, drug their aching bodies and blistered hands out of their tents and up a hill over looking the valley of ditches . It must have been a beautiful sight to see the glittering water shining in the sun!
What a contrast to how the Moabites reacted to seeing the water in the ditches! (2 kings 3: 22) “And the Moabites saw the water on the other side(from their perspective) as red as blood. And they said, “This is blood: the kings are surely slain!” They thought Israel had been defeated. Digging ditches (like helping our children through really hard things, surrendering my fear, pain, or regret) can sometimes look like failure from the other side. It can look like blood in the ditches when my heart is not surrendered to God. It can be very tempting to listen to discouragement in my heart like, “What did you do wrong?”, “How could you let that happen?”, “Didn’t you know something was wrong?”. I can feel defeated when I listen to these thoughts.
Here is what I felt the spirit speaking to me through these passages of scripture.
Don’t let the skewed vision of discouragement or fear dissuade you from rising up, pulling yourself up the hill to see the beautiful refreshing view of how God is working through your difficult circumstances! Keep digging ditches! He will fill them!!
A Loss For Words 