Jehoshaphat’s Story – Believe and Trust

¹⁸ Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the Lord. ¹⁹ Then some Levites from the Kohathites and Korahites stood up and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. – 2 Chronicles 20:18-19

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We are continuing in Jehoshaphat’s story found in 2 Chronicles 20. Last week we saw how God told the nation of Judah to not fear because the battle belonged to Him.

In verses 18-19, it says, “Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the Lord. Then some Levites from the Kohathites and Korahites stood up and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice.”

A few things jump out to me in these verses. I love that Jehoshaphat and the people praised and worshipped God. We will talk more about praise in a future post, therefore I won’t get into that here.

However, there is something else I want to point out. In the way that Jehoshaphat and all the people reacted – we see that they believed and trusted God. They believed that what God said was true. And they trusted Him with whatever was ahead.

How often do we ask ourselves, “Did God really say that? Maybe I heard Him wrong.” Especially when we don’t see immediate results, we begin to doubt.

Or we might say we are handing something over to God. Yet we still worry and fret about it. Our minds keep going over the situation. We still hold onto fear, because we don’t completely trust God to fight our battles.

I know in prior posts we talked about things like turning to God, seeking God, remembering who God is, praying to God, and so on. And in a way, this topic might seem similar.

However, I feel it’s important to stress just how much we need to cling to God through each and every step of our battles. When we get over one hurdle, the enemy will throw another at us. The enemy will keep trying to steer our focus off of God.

So that is why we are talking about believing God and trusting Him. They are important steps in anything we face. Even in our daily lives.

In Jehoshaphat’s story they just received a powerful word. Now they have a choice to make. Will they believe and trust? Or will they doubt?

A Pattern of Doubt

This brings to mind the story of the twelve spies in Numbers 13 and 14. God had promised land to the Israelites. They were so close, knocking on its door. But there were other people living in this land, and they needed to be driven out. So twelve spies were selected to go investigate. When they returned, ten of the twelve came back fearful. They believed the current occupants of the land were just too big to tackle.

Two of the spies – Joshua and Caleb – spoke faith. They knew who their God was. And they knew if God made a promise, He would see them through.

Unfortunately, the ten spies spread their fear through the camp. Everyone bought into the lie. They let doubt take over. As a result, the Israelites stayed in the desert for forty years before they finally entered the Promised Land. The adults of this group never did get to inhabit the new land, except for Joshua and Caleb. It was their children and grandchildren that saw the fulfillment of the promise.

But this was a pattern with the Israelites. When we read through books like Exodus and Numbers, and much of the Old Testament really, we want to shake our heads. Over and over the people doubt God. Then when He comes through for them, they turn back to Him. But it never seems to last.

Are we any better? I hope so. These hard stories are in the Bible to help us learn. It’s not always easy. But we can do it. We can choose to believe and trust God.

A Pep Talk

Sometimes this means we need to give ourselves a pep talk. There is an important factor that plays a role in our faith – our attitude.

Let’s look at a different Biblical example found in 1 Samuel 30. Prior to David becoming king, he had been living in a place called Ziklag. In this story, David and his men had been away from home. When they returned, they discovered tragedy had struck. The Amalekites “had attacked Ziklag and burned it, and had taken captive the women and everyone else in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.” (1 Samuel 30:1-2)

You can imagine how distressed David and his men were. In verse 4 it says that they “wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” If that wasn’t bad enough, the men then turned against David. Verse 6 tells us that “the men were talking of stoning him.”

But I want to focus on something else from that same verse.

• In the King James Bible, verse 6 goes on to say, “David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.”
• The New King James Version says, “David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.”
• And the NIV and NLT versions say, “David found strength in the LORD his God.”

I love this verse and I think we can learn a lot from it. David chose to encourage himself in God. Why? I think David trusted God in this moment. Although things looked terrible on the outside, David knew from experience that God was trustworthy.

David and his men wound up going after the Amalekites and they recovered everything and everyone that was taken. All the women, children, and other people were recovered. I have to wonder what ending this story would have had if David had not encouraged himself in the Lord? What if David didn’t put his trust in God?

A Present Day Example

As many of you know, we recently were impacted by Hurricane Idalia. As the storm approached, many were understandably fearful and worried. Many also held on to God and prayed. I tried to do that as well. I even used the opportunity to write out a prayer using the same format as Jehoshaphat’s prayer.

I am happy to report that we and our loved ones remained safe through it all.

(I know there were many areas that were hit harder than we were. We are continuing to pray for all.)

As can be expected, many of us lost power. This was when my attitude took a turn. In past hurricanes, we didn’t get our power back for several days. That is what I expected to happen again. Then I realized what I was doing. I was being negative, even after writing this post about encouraging ourselves in the Lord! So once I realized my attitude needed an adjustment, I turned it around. I prayed for restored power. Our power did come back on that same day. Could it be a coincidence? It’s possible, since many in my town are still without power. But that is not the point.

The point is that I knew I needed to keep my focus in the right place. I needed to keep trusting.

Even when those around us are negative, we have a choice to encourage ourselves in the Lord. We can choose to believe and trust.

Life is hard, I know. We will face battles, big and small. So I hope you don’t think I’m making light of the big battles. I’m not.

But I do know, no matter what we are facing, we will have an enemy that wants to bring us down. But we also have a God who wants us to look to Him.

When we face trials, let us choose to run to God and trust Him. Nothing is a surprise to Him. He can help us get through our difficulties and come out the other side with joy and peace.

Then let’s remember to hold onto that trust, no matter what happens next. We might get a promise from God, as Jehoshaphat and the nation of Judah did. Often times this might come to us through the Bible, through prayer, or through another person. When we know God spoke, it’s important to hold onto that and not let doubt creep in.

However, sometimes we might feel God is silent. Or we might think He isn’t working quickly enough. That is when we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord.

The enemy will try to plant doubts into our heads. But “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Let’s not wait for a big storm to come our way. Let’s start today to believe and trust our Almighty God!

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If you have any special prayer requests, please let me know. And please say a prayer for our friends who are facing a hard battle, as they recently had a house fire. Thank you.

And thank you for reading. I hope you have a peaceful weekend.

© 2018-2023 Bridget A. Thomas. All rights reserved.