God's Mighty Men I am attending a Men’s study on Tuesday night and we are reading the book “The Last Arrow” by Erwin McManus. Last night we had a great discussion on the first chapter and there is one part of the Chapter that talks about the Prophet Elisha sharing his wisdom with the king Jehoash. Elisha was telling the king what it would take to be successful. Read the story below.
2 Kings 13: 14>20 Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” Elisha said, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did so. “Take the bow in your hands,” he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. “Open the east window,” he said, and he opened it. “Shoot!” Elisha said, and he shot. “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!” Elisha declared. “You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.” Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and the king took them. Elisha told him, “Strike the ground.” He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.” Elisha died and was buried.
The wisdom that Elisha passed on was an act of Obedience on the part of King Jehoash and the king did in great on the first portion of the instructions. Now when he was told to strike the ground with his arrows that is when he lost the full blessings of God.
Our discussion was. How many times would I have struck my arrows to the ground? I have to tell you that I may have done what the king did – it did not make sense and a few times would have been enough. When God is calling on us to do something – how many times do we just go far enough? I believe God is calling us to go farther and not stopping at a point that is comfortable.
The first chapter talks about being Average and how comfortable we become by not going farther. We like that spot of being average when God is calling us to be extraordinary.
A couple of quotes from the Chapter are:
- We are to shoot and strike, but we are what we are not to do is stop.
- I wonder how many times in my own life I thought I failed but actually the only thing that happened was that I quit.
- We are living a life that is uniquely our own.
So I am back to the original question:
How many times would you strike your Arrows?
Bobbyg
