The Power of ‘Perhaps’: A Biblical Perspective

I only have about six weeks left as Lead Pastor, and for these final weeks, I want to share some of my all-time favorite verses for our “Verse of the Week.”

A little context: this verse drops us into a war between the Israelites and the Philistines around 1000 BC. Saul is King, his son Jonathan is by his side, and they are hopelessly outnumbered. We’re talking roughly 600 Israelite soldiers against thousands of Philistines. And it gets worse — the Philistines had seized all the Israelite blacksmiths, meaning the entire army was essentially unarmed. Only Saul and Jonathan even had swords.

The Israelites were camped on one cliff, staring across a ravine at the Philistine encampment on the other side. Then one night, Jonathan slipped away with just his armor bearer, and that brings us to this week’s verse.

1 Samuel 14:6 (NLT) ⁶ “Let’s go across to the outpost of those pagans,” Jonathan said to his armor bearer. “Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!”

That word “perhaps” would have stopped me cold.

But they went anyway. And God showed up.

How many times do we miss out simply because we chicken out? Maybe we need more fearlessly crazy Christian friends like Jonathan.

You don’t need certainty to step and follow the Lord. You just need a God who can’t be stopped. The armor bearer had a perhaps and a friend, and God did the rest.

Be encouraged.

Photo by OMID on Unsplash