2 Kings 2:16
"Then they said to him, 'Look now, there are fifty strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley'."
Elijah had been taken up by God in a chariot of fire to be with the Lord, leaving the spiritual leadership of Israel in the care of God's appointed heir, Elisha. But soon, those who had followed as Elijah's disciples, pestered Elisha to send out a search party in case God had decided to throw him out of the chariot of fire and back to the earth!
Of course, Elisha knew better, but soon relented and allowed the fifty to conduct a fruitless, three day search. Elijah was nowhere to be found, for the Spirit had taken him alive to be with the Lord, in a flying chariot no less!
While there is humor in this account, with the fifty going in search of the one whom the Spirit had wisked away, I also see tragedy. These men just couldn't believe that God would act in a way they couldn't understand. After all, they were the scholars of their day, and had God confined to a doctrinal box that fit their minds.
The tragedy is that man always has this tendency to try to limit God. Just because he's not done something before doesn't mean he will not move in a way which will surprise us in the future.
Sometimes we act just as these fifty, even while believing the Spirit moves in ways we cannot understand, we refuse to believe until we go out looking for our own answers. Like the fifty, our search comes up fruitless, for when the Spirit reaches out and touches someone, we cannot explain the supernatural change that occurs.
LORD JESUS
Lord, I thank you for the supernatural working of the Spirit in the world today. May my heart not be one that goes in search of an understandable solution when the truth of you in action is right before me. Amen.
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