The Mystery of Divine Arithmetic (Part 3) By Babatunde Olugboji
This week, we will continue examining the implications of the events recorded in 2 Kings 6:11–18, where Prophet Elisha demonstrated the importance of operating with awareness of the invisible realm. In this passage, he prayed for his servant to encounter the power of God in a brand-new way. The scene of this dramatic event was a city called Dothan, where Elisha and his servant suddenly found themselves surrounded by the army of Syria.
This narrative makes at least one thing crystal clear: in Kingdom arithmetic, one person, or a few people with God, is always a majority. Gideon’s 300 men, plus God, routed 135,000 Midianites (Judges 7–8). David faced Goliath with a sling and five stones. Jesus fed over 5,000 people with a little boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fish. In all three cases, visible resources were laughably insufficient, but God’s invisible resources were overwhelmingly sufficient. That is why Paul declared, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).
Never, ever allow the enemy to audit your resources using his fraudulent accounting system. He will always make you feel bankrupt. He will trick you into believing that his unreliable computation is reliable, but it is anything but. Satan’s arithmetic always exaggerates your limitations and minimizes God’s capacity.
When you live by heaven’s accounting system, all you have to do is bring your insufficiency before the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the Almighty who commands legions of angels, and the One who spoke the universe into existence by the word of His power, and the numbers will change. As you read this series, I pray that your focus will shift to Kingdom arithmetic, and that your numbers will change in the name of Jesus.
When the servant’s eyes were opened, he saw horses and chariots of fire — not regular horses, not regular chariots, but heaven’s military force filling the mountain. They were organized, armed, mobilized, and positioned. God does not send His people into battle without covering. The Holy Spirit, and indeed the fullness of the Godhead, is mobilized on behalf of those who are called by His name. The enemy brings horses and chariots; God brings fire.
The question is: why do we often fail to draw strength from this truth? The answer is simple. We are terrified for the same reason the servant was terrified: our eyes are not open.
In verse 17, Elisha saw the terror on the servant’s face, but notice what he did not do. He did not lecture him. He did not rebuke him. He did not accuse him of having no faith. Instead, he did two things.
1. First, he calmed him down and assured him that they were under heaven’s protection: “Don’t be afraid… Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).
2. Second, he prayed a breathtakingly simple but audacious prayer: “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see” (2 Kings 6:17).
Elisha could have stopped at calming him down. He could have simply explained the heavenly reality to him. But he went further. He wanted the servant to see for himself what the prophet already saw. That is discipleship at its highest.
Unlike many pastors, prophets, and spiritual mentors in our age who mentor by encouraging their mentees to remain dependent on them, Elisha strengthened the faith of his servant by asking God to open his own eyes. Elisha did not want the servant to merely borrow his revelation; he wanted him to encounter God’s reality personally. He did not want him to live permanently on secondhand faith. He wanted him to see the invisible for himself.
That is one of the marks of true spiritual leadership. True mentors do not make people addicted to their anointing; they help people develop their own walk with God. True shepherds do not keep people spiritually blind so they can remain needed; they pray for their eyes to be opened so they can stand in faith. Elisha’s prayer was not, “Lord, make him depend on me.” His prayer was, “Lord, open his eyes.”
And when God opened the servant’s eyes, the situation did not change, but his perception changed. The Syrian army was still there. The horses and chariots of the enemy had not disappeared. Dothan was still surrounded. But now the servant saw that the enemy’s army was not the only army on the field.
That is the mystery of divine arithmetic. God does not always remove the enemy immediately; sometimes He first opens your eyes to see that the enemy is already outnumbered.
To be continued.
Have a good week.
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