My Eyes are On You

O, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do but our eyes are upon you.

2 Chronicles 20: 12

Where is your attention focused on at this hour? Where are your eyes focused on?

Yes, there is so much going on in the world that it is difficult to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes.

My Sisters and Brothers of the Cross, we must focus on Jesus. When we take our eyes off Jesus, we lose our way. Everything we have gained is lost when we lose focus. It’s like The Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13, Luke 8 and Mark 4. Some seeds fell on stony ground. They sprang up quickly because of shallow soil and the sun soon scorched them and they died.

Jehoshaphat was king of Judah. Judah was doing great. King Jehoshaphat had rid the land of the Asherah Poles and set his heart on seeking God. King Ahab asked king Jehoshaphat to join with him in battle. King Jehoshaphat agreed that he would fight with King Ahab. Maybe he had felt obligated since he had married in Ahab’s family. He had gone against the Prophet Micaiah’s recommendations. King Ahab did not get along with the prophet. He accused Micaiah of never prophesying anything good about him. “Always prophesying something bad”, he complained. All the false prophets prophesied something good. They told Ahab to go to Ramoth Gilead and he would win they told King Ahab but Micaiah told him it would be disastrous for them.

Long story short, King Ahab died in battle but Jehoshaphat made it through and 2 Chronicles Chapter 20 begins when the Moabites and Meunites are making war on him and Judah.

My sister and Brothers, things looked bad…..real bad for Judah. The King stood in front of the new courtyard and said: Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. 7 Our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? 8 They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying, 9 ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.’

10 “But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. 11 See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. 12 Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

King Jehoshaphat called on the Lord that they wanted to get rid of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir when they came out of Egypt. They wanted to invade them, destroy them a long time ago, but you Lord would not let us and look at what they are doing against us now. They want to come and kill us all. They will take our land, families and destroy our lives. They will have no mercy on us Lord. I remind you again Lord, you should have let us kill them. We are trembling in our shoes. We can’t destroy this vast, huge army. They are going to annihilate us. We have no power to destroy them. Lord, we do not know what we are going to do, but our eyes are on you. My Sisters and Brothers, we have no power to destroy this enemy of low income, low paying jobs, sickness in our body, sending our children to school on student loans that have unfair interest rates that takes them forever to pay back. They are already struggling after college and this loan adds more weight. Lord I don’t know what we are going to do, but our eyes are on you. The COVID-19 disease or crisis is here. It is killing many of us. It is making us sick. We can’t get tested to even see if we have the virus. We are losing our jobs. We are losing our love ones by the thousands. Lord we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you. Food lines at the grocery stores, doctors are telling us to go home and wait 14 days. The stench of death is around the world. Lord, we don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you. The government is taking from the rich and giving to the poor. There is a big bill that the Senate wrote…., they call it -Emergency Relief Bill. They said they would go back and get more money to help us in the next phase. We don’t know when, or how this money will reach us. We don’t even know specifically who is included in the bill. We look at the news. We saw the figures and what they said about who this bill would include, but Lord we don’t know if we are included or not or what we will receive.

They are trying to stop the SNAP Program that help feed low income families. They are still trying to take away our healthcare. Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you. This vast army is trying to take us out. We can’t fight this vast army without you Lord. We are praying for those first responders who are trying to care for the sick around the country with gloves, shortages, ventilators shortages, gown shortages……this vast army is strong O Lord. Again, we don’ know what to do, BUT our eyes are on you.

Glory to God. We must keep our eyes on you, Lord. Some are feeling discouraged, and even hopeless, You, O Lord is the only one that will help us or can HELP us. You helped us over 2000 years ago when you sent Jesus. He lived for 33 short years teaching, preaching, healing, feeding the hungry and so much more. Then one day he set his eyes on Jerusalem like a flint. He knew it was time to go back to His father but He had to die first. He loved us so much, John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” All the time our Lord had his eyes on the Father. They false accused Him but He kept his eyes on God and finally He said, “Lord forgive them for they know not what they do” Luke 23: 34.

Be encouraged my sisters and brothers, God is still able.

Part 2 of My Eyes are On You is forthcoming.

Thank you,

Rev. Dr. Yulla P. Hines

#hope