Restrained

“for the LORD is not restrained to save by many or by few.”  1 Samuel 14:6

Restrained – Mass marketing.  The numbers game.  Mega-lotto.  Our world view is all about “bigger is better”.  How many business decisions do we make based entirely on the premise that mass exposure will produce results?  How many projects do we promote because they fit the mass demographics?  How much of our lives are bound by accumulating big numbers in order to insure bigger influence?

That was Saul’s view.  He had only six hundred soldiers to stand against the thousands of Philistines.  He concluded that there was no way to win.  But Saul’s son Jonathan had a different view.  His eyes saw that there was only one alliance that mattered.  If God fought the battle, did it really matter how big the army was?  Jonathan said to his single compatriot, “God’s victory doesn’t depend on how many fight.  God is not hindered by the number who follow Him.”

This Hebrew word, ma’sor comes from a root that means to hold back or constrain.  Jonathan saw that if you are aligned with what God is doing, size doesn’t matter at all.  Nothing is going to hold God back.  Have you let that radical, counter-intuitive, completely “not common sense” thought permeate who you are?  Or are you still running around trying to enlist an army of support for God’s cause?

We wrestle with this every day.  Our mantra is “more”.  We need to rethink just what god we serve.  Do you see Jesus recruiting bodies in order to complete the Father’s latest program?  Or is Jesus, finally, an unstoppable army of one?  Jonathan and Jesus succeed not because they gather the masses but because they bet their lives on God.  Is that how we operate?  Are we so sure of God’s direction that we can step into battle alone?  This is not a trivial matter.  If God’s reign is absolutely first in your life, why do you hedge your bets?  Why do you worry about the size of the mass mailing or the reach of the advertising?  Who really runs your publicity campaign?  What god do you serve when you make decisions based on the numbers alone?

What do you suppose it would be like to be totally beyond the prison of counting?