A few mornings ago, the Lord brought me to 2 Kings 3. As I started in the middle of the fifteenth verse, the Lord began to open up a picture of what He’s doing now. The scripture reads:
“15B While the harp was being played, the power of the Lord came upon Elisha, 16 and he said, “This is what the Lord says: This dry valley will be filled with pools of water! 17 You will see neither wind nor rain, says the Lord, but this valley will be filled with water. You will have plenty for yourselves and your cattle and other animals. 18 But this is only a simple thing for the Lord, for he will make you victorious over the army of Moab! 19 You will conquer the best of their towns, even the fortified ones. You will cut down all their good trees, stop up all their springs, and ruin all their good land with stones.”
20 The next day at about the time when the morning sacrifice was offered, water suddenly appeared! It was flowing from the direction of Edom, and soon there was water everywhere.
21 Meanwhile, when the people of Moab heard about the three armies marching against them, they mobilized every man who was old enough to strap on a sword, and they stationed themselves along their border. 22 But when they got up the next morning, the sun was shining across the water, making it appear red to the Moabites—like blood. 23 “It’s blood!” the Moabites exclaimed. “The three armies must have attacked and killed each other! Let’s go, men of Moab, and collect the plunder!”
24 But when the Moabites arrived at the Israelite camp, the army of Israel rushed out and attacked them until they turned and ran. The army of Israel chased them into the land of Moab, destroying everything as they went. 25 They destroyed the towns, covered their good land with stones, stopped up all the springs, and cut down all the good trees. Finally, only Kir-hareseth and its stone walls were left, but men with slings surrounded and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab saw that he was losing the battle, he led 700 of his swordsmen in a desperate attempt to break through the enemy lines near the king of Edom, but they failed.
1. Your Dry Valley Will Be Filled
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Collectively, places in culture and current events that have been “dried up”, lifeless, progress-less, not yielding fruit, or emptied of God are becoming places overflowing with His presence. The least likely areas that are spiritual “Saharas” are going to begin showing signs of the presence of God. On an individual level, that dry valley you’ve been facing is about to become your very place of refreshing. Just like the valley of dry bones, nothing is too hard for the Lord. Instead of withdrawing from those hard places, He is calling us to focus our faith on His goodness prevailing in them. Soak in those places!! Worship in that place! Where there was once no living water, there will be pools of “soaking” in His presence.
2. Not By Wind and Rain
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In this passage, the Lord specifically said He would fill these places “not by wind nor rain”. In other words, the source won’t make sense. You also won’t see or feel it coming. When the Lord speaks something to us, our natural response is to imagine the ways He could make it happen or to look in the natural for the slightest signs of a breakthrough. In the natural, we can see clouds or wind in weather forecasts and know what to expect. But now, Lord is spiritually saturating us in a way we won’t expect for the sole purpose of letting us know it is one hundred percent by His power. It won’t be by your effort. What's more, it won’t even come by "storm". Sometimes we expect to see God’s power the greatest in the toughest storms, so we board up our spiritual windows and prepare for the worst. In this passage that isn’t so. He merely shares with us to expect this and then does it in a way that is not natural, usual, loud, strenuous, or predictable.
3. Soaking Scares the Enemy
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In this passage, the enemy sees the areas the Lord soaks and they have the appearance of blood. It scares them off before they even attack! The way the Lord is moving in dry areas is going to give the appearance of the blood of Jesus all over our lives and culture. So much so that it will scare the enemy! Your dry places- those places that have been footholds in the past for the enemy- will now become your weapon against him as they become saturated by the Lord. Just like blood in this Old Testament passage is prophetic of what Jesus would one day do, the areas of soaking now are going to become prophetic areas. They will become both testimonies of what the Lord has done but also prophecies of what He will do again.
4. Ruin the Enemy’s Plantings
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This passage comes with a directive for us. We must be about preparing the land in such a way that all that was used by the enemy is cut off. “Cut down all their good trees”, “stone up their springs”, “ruin their good land with stones”. These directives carry images with them. We recently had to uproot a small tree that was growing too close to our oak. The bigger it got, the more it was going to tap into the resources the oak needed. What area is the enemy leeching resources from your life (time, energy, money, creativity, etc) that should be used to grow what God has planted?
At a friend’s ranch, we had to once stone up an old creek. Not only was it running over the road, but by stoning it up, it made a place where you could swim. Stoning up a creek redirects its flow. There are places where the Lord is redirecting you- not to cut you off, but to stone up places good water is “leaking off” and watering what God isn’t growing in your life.
When we moved into our house, the yard was xeriscaped completely with rocks. Getting the rocks out took us the better part of a year, but we couldn’t grow grass until it was done. Placing stones in the soil of the enemy has a way of preventing him from growing things too. Stones, Biblically, are monuments to what God has done. Testimonies of what He’s brought us through, what He's brought those before us through, or what He's brought those around us through. Any time the enemy tries to plant a lie, put a testimony stone there. It stunts the growth instantly.
5. Don’t Fear the Last Ditch Effort
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The passage ends with a last "desperate attempt" by the enemy. Doesn’t that happen to us? We finally are getting progress and here comes the last-ditch effort of the enemy to derail us. It’s often loud, exaggerated, out of nowhere, and very stressful. But if we rise above in peace and see it for what it is, we know from this word that it will come to nothing. It will fail. Don’t pay any attention to it. Instead, enjoy the abundance the Lord is creating in the places you very least expected it. Shift your focus to soaking, and watch what He will do!
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