Weekly Devotional – August 17-21 (Praying Beyond Our Limits Sermon 2)
click the blue heading to download the devotional
Monday — Acknowledge Your Fear
“And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.” —2 Chronicles 20:3
Sunday night after the service, John and Jane were still talking about the sermon. The pastor had preached from 2 Chronicles 20, about King Jehoshaphat and an army coming against Judah. The pastor’s line kept circling back through John’s mind: “When I don’t know what to do, I know exactly what to do.”
Across the table, Ben was quiet, turning his phone face-down. It buzzed again. A text from Tyler, the friend Ben had written on his prayer card three Fridays ago, the one who had walked away from church and from God. Tyler had been picked up by police after a party got out of hand. Ben set the phone down and said nothing.
“Something wrong?” John asked. Ben hesitated. Admitting he was scared felt like admitting he had failed somehow. “Jehoshaphat was afraid too,” John said. “It’s right there in verse three. The Bible doesn’t hide it.”
Jane read the verse aloud. She pointed out the word “feared” — it simply means to be afraid, alarmed by danger. Jehoshaphat didn’t pretend to be calm and he didn’t bury the feeling. The text records his fear in the same breath as his faith.
Grandma Ruth called before bed, like she did most Sunday nights. Jane told her about Tyler. “Don’t rush past being scared,” Ruth said. “I’ve buried plenty of fear over the years by acting like it wasn’t there. It never made the fear smaller. It just made me harder to reach.”
Beth listened from the hallway, thinking about a decision of her own she’d been quietly avoiding — a friendship she knew wasn’t good for her. She didn’t say anything yet, but she filed the moment away.
Later, Ben admitted it out loud. “I’m scared for him. And I’m scared I waited too long to say anything real to him.” “Then tell God that,” John said. “Nothing more polished than the truth.”
What Scripture Says
The pastor’s first point from 2 Chronicles 20:3 was simple: acknowledge your fear. The Hebrew word behind “feared” means to be afraid, alarmed by real danger, and Jehoshaphat did not deny it or ignore it. When we deny our fear, we cheat ourselves out of the very thing that should send us to God. When we ignore it, we keep managing the situation alone. Only when we are honest do we take the step that leads us to Him. Name that fear before Him today, instead of hiding it beneath a calm face.
Tuesday — Act Biblically Toward Your Fear
“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” —Psalm 56:3
Ben barely slept. By breakfast he still had no idea what to say to Tyler, and part of him wanted to say nothing at all. “Acknowledging the fear was step one,” John said, sliding the cereal box across the table. “It’s not the finish line.”
He read 2 Chronicles 20:3 again, slower this time. Jehoshaphat didn’t just feel afraid — he “set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast.” Jane looked up the phrase later and explained it to the kids: it means Jehoshaphat made an intentional decision and turned himself in a particular direction, on purpose. Seeking God wasn’t a passing thought. It became his priority, and everything he did next flowed out of that decision.
“So what does a fast even look like for me on a Tuesday?” Ben asked, not being smart, actually wanting to know. John thought about it. “Maybe it looks like putting the phone away tonight until you’ve actually prayed about this instead of just worrying about it.”
Jane added her own example. She’d been treating prayer about hard things like a reflex — a quick line tossed up while she drove or folded laundry, then straight back to worrying with her own mind. “Jehoshaphat didn’t multitask his way through this,” she said. “He stopped everything else and turned toward God on purpose. That’s different from just hoping something works out.”
That evening, Ben did exactly that. He set his phone on the dresser, sat on the edge of his bed, and prayed out loud for the first time in longer than he wanted to admit — not a safe, general prayer, but the real one, naming Tyler, naming his own fear and his own guilt for waiting so long. Only after that did he pick the phone back up and text Tyler something true instead of something easy.
Nothing was resolved by bedtime. But Ben had taken the step he could actually take, and for the first time all week he fell asleep without replaying the same worry on a loop.
What Scripture Says
The Hebrew phrase behind “set himself to seek the LORD” carries the idea of a deliberate decision, not a passing feeling. Jehoshaphat’s fear did not paralyze him; it moved him toward God on purpose. He proclaimed a fast, gathered the people, and led them in prayer — action, not merely a thought added to his prayer list. Psalm 56:3 gives the same pattern in a single line: fear itself becomes the occasion for trust, not the excuse to avoid it. Is the situation you are praying about alarming you? Is it worth setting yourself, deliberately, to seek the Lord about it today — not just thinking about praying, but actually doing it?
Wednesday — Ask Others to Seek the LORD
“And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD… they came to seek the LORD.” —2 Chronicles 20:4
Wednesday night at church, Ben sat through youth group without saying a word about Tyler. It felt like someone else’s business to hand around, even to people who would care.
The youth pastor’s lesson that night lined up with the sermon Sunday: Jehoshaphat didn’t carry Judah’s fear by himself. He gathered the whole nation to seek the Lord together. “Even Jesus did this,” the youth pastor said, pointing to Matthew 26. “In Gethsemane, in His own sorrow, He brought Peter, James, and John with Him and said, ‘tarry ye here, and watch with me.’ If Jesus asked for that kind of company in His hardest hour, we shouldn’t assume we’re stronger than He was.”
Jane sat two rows back, thinking about her own instinct to handle things quietly. She had done the same thing with smaller struggles for years — carrying them alone, telling herself she didn’t want to burden anyone, when really she just didn’t want to feel exposed. Watching Ben wrestle with the same instinct made her own pattern harder to excuse.
On the drive home, Jane gently pushed. “You don’t have to tell the whole church about Tyler. But is there one person — your youth pastor, a friend you trust — who you could ask to pray with you specifically?”
Ben thought about it the rest of the week and finally told his youth pastor the whole situation on Thursday. The youth pastor didn’t have an answer either, but he prayed with Ben right there in the church parking lot, and told him he’d be praying for Tyler by name from then on. It didn’t fix anything. It did mean Ben wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.
That night Jane made a call of her own, to a friend from her Bible study she hadn’t been honest with in months. It was a small conversation, nothing dramatic, but it was the first time in a long while she had asked someone else to seek the Lord with her about something that actually mattered.
What Scripture Says
Jehoshaphat called all of Judah to seek the Lord together, because they were affected by the outcome and had a stake in the deliverance. Scripture repeats this principle: Paul asked believers to “strive together” with him in prayer (Romans 15:30), and testified that many people praying for him meant many people giving thanks on his behalf (2 Corinthians 1:11). Even Jesus, facing the agony of the cross, brought Peter, James, and John into Gethsemane with Him. Do not neglect the church’s role in praying for you and with you. You do not have to broadcast every burden to everyone, but find someone you trust and ask them to seek the Lord alongside you.
Thursday — Remember Who God Is and What He Has Done
“…and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?” —2 Chronicles 20:6
No word yet from Tyler by Thursday. The waiting was its own kind of hard. Grandma Ruth called again that evening and could hear it in Jane’s voice. “Can I tell you something I keep coming back to?” she said. “Years ago I prayed for something I was sure would never turn around. It did, eventually, in a way I never would have planned myself. I still think about that answer whenever I don’t know what’s coming next.”
John noticed something about Jehoshaphat’s prayer that he’d missed before. Before Jehoshaphat ever mentioned the army or admitted he didn’t know what to do, he started by acknowledging who God is: “art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?” Only after that did he remind himself what God had already done — given Judah this land, kept His promises, heard His people when they cried out from that very temple.
Beth, still turning over her own unresolved decision from earlier in the week, asked why order would matter. Couldn’t you just ask God for help without the preamble? John admitted he’d wondered the same thing, but the more he sat with the passage, the more it looked like the preamble was the point. Jehoshaphat wasn’t stalling. He was building his confidence on something solid before he ever touched the fear itself.
That night the family tried something similar out loud before they prayed for Tyler. They said what they knew was true about God’s power first. Then they remembered specific answers to prayer — the folded slips still sealed in the glass bowl at church, John’s own salvation at sixteen, the way God had carried Grandma Ruth through hard seasons before. None of it changed Tyler’s situation. It steadied the family for another day of waiting.
What Scripture Says
Jehoshaphat’s prayer follows a pattern worth noticing: he starts with who God is, then remembers what God has done, before he ever states the problem. Knowing we should pray does not automatically make our faith strong — confidence in prayer comes from remembering God’s power and His faithfulness. Jehoshaphat knew Judah could not defeat the army coming against them, but he also knew his limitations were not God’s limitations. This is a common pattern throughout Scripture: God’s people remind themselves of who God is, what He has done, and what He has said, especially when facing something they have never faced before. Say out loud what God is able to do. Remember what He has already done in your life and in your church’s history. When you don’t know what God will do next, you can strengthen your faith with what you already know to be true about Him.
Friday — Acknowledge My Dependence on God
“…neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.” —2 Chronicles 20:12
Friday afternoon, Tyler texted back. He agreed to meet with Ben and the youth pastor over the weekend. No promises attached, no guarantee of how it would go, but a door had opened.
“I still don’t know what to say to him,” Ben admitted to John that evening. “Good,” John said, which was not the answer Ben expected. John opened his Bible to verse 12 of the passage they’d been reading all week: “we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.” “Jehoshaphat didn’t walk in with a plan either,” John said. “He walked in with his eyes on God instead of on the problem. That’s not the same as having no faith. It’s what real dependence looks like.”
That night, the family gathered around the kitchen table with a new card for the glass bowl at church. They didn’t write a solution, because they didn’t have one. Jane wrote Tyler’s name again. Ben wrote beneath it, this time in different words than before — not just a name and a fear, but an honest admission that he didn’t know what to do and was trusting God to.
Beth wrote a card of her own that night too. She had spent the whole week circling the decision she’d overheard herself avoiding on Monday, and she finally admitted on paper what she hadn’t said out loud: she didn’t know what to do about the friendship either, and she was tired of pretending she had it figured out. Folding it felt like relief instead of defeat.
The pastor’s phrase from Sunday came back to Ben as he folded the card. When I don’t know what to do, I know exactly what to do. He still didn’t know what he’d say to Tyler tomorrow. He knew where his eyes needed to stay tonight.
What Scripture Says
It is possible to pray while still trying to solve the problem ourselves — bringing God a plan and asking Him to bless it rather than truly seeking His answer. Jehoshaphat reached a different place. He admitted “we have no might” and “neither know we what to do.” He had no plan to present. He simply said, “our eyes are upon thee.” Dependence on God means being willing to admit we do not have the answer and trusting Him with what happens next. When faith works alongside fear, our eyes stay on God. When fear works alone, our eyes stay on the problem. What is the need in your life that, if God does not intervene, would be tragic? Walk back through this week’s steps — acknowledge your fear, act on it biblically, ask others to seek the Lord with you, remember who God is and what He has done — and then, like Jehoshaphat, fix your eyes on Him.