When you are broken and lost, prayer is not the end of the story. Four practical steps from Elisha and the king’s arrows to move you back into motion.
There comes a moment when you find yourself helpless. Broken. Confused. Beaten and lost. And like a desperate king, you run to a man of God and you cry, “What is the way out?” How do I get my life back on track? How do I help my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife, or just myself, find the way back?
And after you have prayed and prayed and prayed, what practical steps can you actually take to move yourself from the doldrums of life into real progress? Prayer is not the enemy of action; it is the beginning of it. There is a story in Scripture for exactly that moment. Elisha the prophet lay dying, and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, wept over his face, and cried out the very words Elisha himself had once cried when Elijah was taken up.
And Elisha said to him, ‘Take a bow and some arrows.’ … Then Elisha said, ‘Shoot’; and he shot. … And he said to the king of Israel, ‘Strike the ground’; so he struck three times, and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, and said, ‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.’
2 Kings 13:15–19 (NKJV)
The king wanted the chariots and horsemen to start moving for him. But Elisha essentially said, not so fast. There is a process here. There are steps to take before the horsemen of heaven go to work on your behalf. And note takers are world changers, so take these four down.
Awareness — pick up your own bow
The first step is awareness. Notice that the king had to take, for himself, his own bow and his own arrows. So let me ask you: are you aware of your own talents and gifts? Do you actually know who you are and what you have been handed?
Most of us can recite our weaknesses in our sleep. We know our Achilles’ heel, our flaws, our failures. But when was the last time you did an honest audit of your strengths, of what you are genuinely good at? Here is why you tend to miss it: your real gift is effortless. You do not think about it. You just do it, so you assume it is nothing special.
Do you know why the devil works so hard to blind you to your bow and arrows? Because the way out of your own darkness is by becoming a light to others. So he keeps you staring at someone else. “I wish I were like Pastor Okezie, or like Juliet, or like Chidi.” No. Be yourself. You must know yourself to grow yourself. Once you can see what you carry, the next move is to find the roles and the places where you can deploy it.
As you take that audit, look in three places:
- Gifts — the things God has blessed in your life. Do what God is blessing; do not keep asking God to bless what you are doing. What is God-given is God-empowered, and that means it will never drain you dry.
- Ministries — your particular role in serving others. For some it is asking the questions, for some it is explaining things on a call, for some it is inviting people and making sure they actually come. Find the role that ties to your gift and do it.
- Activities — your own way of doing things. You do not have to do it my way, and not everyone is going to do it your way.
Action — put your hand on the bow
The second step is action. Watch the sequence closely. “Put your hand on the bow.” The king put his hand on it first, and only then did Elisha lay his hands on the king’s hands.
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
1 Peter 4:10 (NKJV)
Take hold. Grab it. Move. God is not going to move you like a puppet to do the thing He has gifted you for. You move yourself, the moment you become aware of what God has blessed. And here is the order so many people get backwards: the prophet did not put his hands on the king’s hands until the king had already put his hand on the bow. God will not move — even on something He Himself has blessed — until you have acted. God wants to put His super on your natural. Then, and only then, it becomes supernatural.
Adversity — take the shot
The third step is adversity. Elisha said, “Shoot,” and the king shot. But think about the questions racing through that man’s mind. Shoot at what? Shoot where? Shoot how? That is what adversity is — those seasons when you do not have all the answers, and your unanswered questions cripple you with fear.
We want every answer before we take the shot. Some of us are stuck on ready, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, and we never fire. We have lost real opportunities simply because we refused to shoot; we wanted it to be perfect before we typed and posted. But hear this: you will miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take. You will never be hired for the job you never apply for. Take the shot.
And notice the king did not have to see the arrow land in Syria to obey. Elisha simply said shoot, and he shot. The instruction came before the evidence. That is almost always the order. You will not be handed a guarantee before you act; you will be handed a bow and told to open the window. Obedience in the fog is still obedience, and it is exactly what breaks the paralysis of adversity.
Ambition — keep striking the ground
The fourth step is ambition. Elisha told the king to take the arrows and strike the ground. He struck three times and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, because he should have struck five or six times, and now his victory would be cut short.
Keep striking the ground until it is done. Do not stop. Do not give up. Do not quit. Keep striking until every territory God has promised you is actually yours. How many times in your life do you think you failed, when the truth is you simply quit too soon? God said strike until you win, and you assumed it would only take two or three tries.
So do not measure yourself by whether the fight has ended; measure yourself by whether you are still swinging. The devil is never going to send word that he has stopped. Your assignment is not to wait for his surrender but to refuse your own. Strike a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth — strike until there is simply no more ground left to take.
You tried dating twice, your heart got broken, and now you say you will never try again? Where is your ambition? You applied for a job five times and got five rejections, so you decide you have done enough — with all the arrows God has put in your hand? Dust yourself off and go again.
No man of God can help a quitter, because a quitter cannot partner with God, and God is not a quitter. Where did we ever get the idea that if God is in it, it will all be smooth sailing? In spiritual warfare the goal is not to get the devil to stop; it is to get yourself to keep going. And the fact that you are not seeing full results does not mean you are getting no results. Keep striking.
We have already read the end of the book. We win. The only way you lose is if you quit. So tell the devil plainly: I am still here. Real failure is not aiming too high and falling short. Real failure is setting the goal so low that you reach it in three easy strikes and call it done.
When you cry, ‘My father, my father’
So the next time you find yourself down, broken, and helpless, beyond the reach of another camp meeting or another mountaintop, crying “My father, my father” — remember the four steps. Become aware of who you are and what God has given you. Take action and seize those gifts. Conquer adversity and take the shot even without every answer. And stay ambitious, again, and again, and again, until the work is finished. The horsemen are ready. Pick up your bow.