God Protects His Plans...

2 Kings 2: 19-25 ~ Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of them.

Does this not strike you as pretty rough punishment for making fun of someone? Did you read the verses right before this one? Elisha was walking along and a group of young men in their late teens to early twenties approached Elisha and began to taunt him. They were shouting Baldy! Baldy! Doesn't sound bad enough to be mauled by bears does it?

Well, I had to research a little bit to try and understand a little bit more about the punishment that God sent for these young men. First off I learned they were older than the word boys implied to me, so they should have known better. Second, the word baldy in this day and age was very, very offensive. Baldness was regarded as a disgrace. We don't know if Elisha was really bald or perhaps he was shaved because he was a prophet or or it was merely a way to show contempt to God's prophet Elisha.

The cursing was done because these young men were actually showing contempt to God. So God was showing all around that Elisha was his guy. It was a warning to all around to leave Elisha alone, so that he could perform his duties of serving Him. To get out of God's way because He will protect His plans. Are you standing in the way of something God might be trying to do? Are you sharing seeds of doubt perhaps to hinder something He is doing?

To close please look at 2 Kings 4 and the stories of miracles performed during the famine with food. Begin in verse 42, a man brought a sack of grain and twenty loaves of barley bread to Elisha. He told them to give it to the people to eat and the man replied, "How will we feed a hundred people with this?"...Elisha replied, "the LORD says, Everyone will eat and there will even be some left over." God provides all we need and more! Over and over we hear this, but do we claim it? God provides so very much that we will even have leftovers! WOW! Praise God!

Sweet Blessings,
Debbie