This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and one another: “Lord, open our eyes so we may see.” We are surrounded, just as the prophet Elisha was, by God’s “horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17), waiting to transport us to places of glorious victory.

Once our eyes are opened by God, we will see all the events of our lives, whether great or small, joyful or sad, as a “chariot” for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such. On the other hand, even the smallest trial may become an object crushing everything in its path into misery and despair if we allow it.

The difference then becomes a choice we make. It all depends not on the events themselves but on how we view them. If we simply lie down, allowing them to roll over and crush us, they become an uncontrollable car of destruction. Yet if we climb into them, as riding in a car of victory, they become the chariots of God to triumphantly take us onward and upward.

There is not much the Lord can do with a crushed soul. That is why the Adversary attempts to push God’s people toward despair and hopelessness over their condition or the condition of the church. It has often been said that a discouraged army enters a battle with the certainty of defeat. I recently heard a missionary say she had returned home sick and disheartened because her spirit had lost its courage, which led to the consequence of an unhealthy body.

We need to better understand these attacks of the Enemy on our spirit and how to resist them. If he can dislodge us from our proper position, he then seeks to “wear out the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:25 KJV) through a prolonged siege, until we finally, out of sheer weakness, surrender all hope of victory.

But Lord, they do not look like chariots. They look instead like enemies, sufferings, trials, defeats, misunderstandings, disappointments, unkindnesses; juggernaut cars of misery and wretchedness that are only waiting to roll over us and crush us into the earth.

But they are chariots; chariots of triumph in which we may rise to those very heights of victory for which our souls have been longing and praying.

Earthly chariots are subject to the laws of matter and may be hindered or overturned; God’s chariots are controlled by spiritual forces, and triumph over all hindering things!

“Tens of thousands” says the text; and although our spiritual eyes may not as yet have been opened to see them, all around us on every side they must be waiting for us.

“And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17).

Chariots the King of Syria was unable to see, nor could the servant of the prophet see them. But the prophet himself sat calmly in his house without fear—his eyes had been opened to see the invisible. Now, what he asked for his servant was, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.”

Open our eyes that we may see!

I have not a shadow of a doubt that if all our eyes were opened today we would see our homes, our places of business, the streets we traverse, filled with the “chariots of God.” There is no need for any one of us to walk for lack of a chariot in which to ride: that cross inmate of your household, who has hitherto made life a burden to you and who had been the juggernaut car to crush your soul into the very dust, may henceforth be a glorious chariot to carry you to the heights of heavenly patience and long-suffering; that misunderstanding, that mortification, that unkindness, that disappointment, that loss, that defeat—these are the chariots waiting to carry you to those places of victory you have so often longed to reach.

Somewhere in the trial His will must be hidden, and you must accept His will whether known or unknown, and so hide yourself in His invisible arms of love. Say, “Thy will be done! Thy will be done!” again and again.

Shut out every other thought but the one thought of submission to His will and of trust in His love. Thus will you find yourself riding with God in a way you never dreamed could be.

No words can express the glorious places to which that soul shall arrive who travels in the chariots of God! Would you ride on the high places of the earth?

Then get into the chariots that will take you there! HANNAH WHITALL SMITH

We were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears.—Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.—Strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.—God is my strength and power: . . . he teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.—Our sufficiency is of God.

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.—Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

The time would fail me to tell of [those] who through faith subdued kingdoms, . . . out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.