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“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look upon it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” (Numbers 21:8-9)

    If you are bitten by a serpent, logic dictates two things: (1) Get treatment as quickly as possible, and, (2) the last thing you want to look at is the image of what bit you. Right? Right! ..er wrong!

    You see, that’s not quite the approach the LORD took. God’s treatment for this emergency was by no means conventional. What we might think the people needed, he didn’t give them. In fact, he told them to do exactly what they feared. This time, however, they acted according to God’s “prescription.” The results were what God had promised! Sometimes, in order not to die, we need to face the very thing that is killing us.

    What delivered the people from death was not the bronze serpent itself, but God’s grace for them and their faith in God and obedience his word, ”...he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” The bronze serpent didn’t heal all of them, but it did heal the ones who believed in the Lord and obeyed him. If somebody didn’t look at the serpent, it was because that person didn’t believe God would use their faith to heal them. They didn’t obey because he didn’t really believe God’s word.

    We are often driven to seek for God’s help by troubling things that come up in our own lives. Unfortunately, we often seek him with a specific solution already in mind. We expect him to answer our prayers according to the “vision” or expectation we have. We need to obtain God’s vision, to seek his counsel, and to pray with open hearts to receive his solution, not our own.

We need to pray with open hearts to receive his solution, not our own.

    Has God asked you to do something that doesn’t make any sense?

    Is he leading you to do something that seems to ineffective, or something you’ve even developed a prejudice against doing?

    Bear in mind, our part is to obey his word and follow his guidance. His part is to do the healing and to choose the way it will be done for us. He wants us to look to him, not to a solution, he wants us to trust him and not our own preconceived notions.

    In the difficult and challenging position you may find yourself in, what is God calling on you to do? Remember the divine antidote. The focus must be on hearing his will and obeying it. Then following through even when the divine solution doesn’t seem to make sense from our limited perspective.

”...nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Math.26:39b) [Said by Jesus to God as he willingly offered himself to obediently follow God’s plan to redeem us.]