What Do You Say to That?

And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so. - I Kings 22:7-8

Time and time again, King Ahab portrays his immaturity.  When Elijah defied him and destroyed the prophets of Baal, Ahab ran home and whined to his wife, Jezebel.  When Naboth refused to give Ahab his vineyard, the king stomped home and refused to eat as he pouted about the problem.  Now, Ahab implores Jehoshaphat to go to war with him, and when Jehoshaphat tells Ahab to inquire of the Lord, Ahab hurries to his false prophets who tell him, "Absolutely!  Go to war, and God will give you the victory."  But Jehoshaphat wasn't satisfied with taking their word for it and asks Ahab if there isn't a true prophet of the Lord whom they could ask.  Ahab's answer, in a nutshell, was "Well, yeah, there's this one guy, but I don't like him because he never tells me what I want to hear.  So, I just don't ask him anymore."  Sheesh, what a baby!


But as I criticized, the Lord smote my heart and showed me the many ways that I have done the exact same thing.  There have been times that I wanted to do something, but I feared (and sometimes downright knew) that it was not the Lord's will, so rather than disobeying, I just didn't ask for permission at all.  There have been times in my Christian walk where I've asked God for things that He didn't see fit to give me, but instead of thanking Him for keeping me from things that would distract me from His will, I grew angry and determined that I just wouldn't ask Him for anything else since He always said "no" anyway.  Childish?  Absolutely.  Bratty?  Unquestionably.  True?  Unfortunately.

I'll be honest with you, sometimes the truth hurts.  Sometimes we feel we would be better off if we hadn't found out the truth or hadn't asked the question to begin with.  But the fact remains that Jesus is the TRUTH, and the truth will set us free (John 8:32).  It may not be pleasant from the start, but all things will work together for good to those of us who love God (Romans 8:28).  When?  I can't tell you that.  I don't know.  God's timing is not my timing, and sometimes He requires us to wait for the freedom that comes from the bearing of truth.  But the freedom will come.  We have His promise on that!