content to have his head in the clouds. His calloused hands had dirt and sand under their fingernails.
And then the day came when all that hard work paid off. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, send his general, Zerah, to plunder Judah. Large as Asa’s conscripted army was, the Egyptians couldn’t be numbered, and they had three hundred chariots, the killing machines of their day.
“Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, ‘Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you (11).’”
And the Lord heard King Asa’s humble plea and gave Judah the victory. The powerless plundered the mighty. The few pursued the many. So great was Egypt’s defeat that it would be almost three hundred years before they confronted a king from Judah again.
Faith works. King Asa’s faith worked hard in peacetime and it worked in a time of crisis, in a time of war.
There is a part of each one of us that longs for an easy life, a tranquil life. The gals want romance kisses that last for days and midnight dances in the south of France. Later in the month the guys want a belly full of turkey and a television filled with football. We’d like to think about God, contemplate our faith, and pretty much leave it at that. Religious. Spiritual. Head in the clouds type of people thinking heavenly thoughts.
But that’s not faith. That’s a false faith. That’s a faith that looks at the suffering of this world and says, “Why doesn’t somebody (else) do something about it, so