Perhaps the LORD Will Act

King Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree.

He had about six hundred men left. The rest had slipped away to caves, thickets, and cisterns when the Philistines arrived with chariots and troops like sand on the seashore. Israel was so thoroughly disarmed that on the day of battle only two men in the whole army owned a sword or spear: Saul and his son Jonathan. The king waited in the shade. Nobody had a plan.

Jonathan did not tell his father what he was about to do. He turned to the young man who carried his armor and spoke one of the most honest sentences of faith in Scripture.

Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few.

-- 1 Samuel 14:6

Read it slowly, because it holds two different kinds of knowing. About God's ability Jonathan has no doubt at all. Numbers mean nothing to the LORD. Two men are as useful to Him as twenty thousand. About God's intention on this particular day, Jonathan says it may be. He has no prophecy and no promise for this hill. He knows who God is, and he is willing to find out what God will do.

The armor-bearer's answer is just as striking.

Do all that is in your heart. Do as you wish. Behold, I am with you heart and soul.

-- 1 Samuel 14:7

We never learn his name. He had no sword of his own. He simply chose to go.

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The way up ran between two rocky crags, Bozez and Seneh, with a Philistine outpost at the top. Jonathan set a simple test: if the soldiers called them up, they would take it as a sign from the LORD. The Philistines mocked them, look, Hebrews are coming out of their holes, and then shouted, come up to us.

So they climbed, on hands and feet. There is nothing heroic about the posture. A man climbing on all fours cannot hold a weapon or defend himself. It was dependence in physical form.

At the top about twenty men fell in a space the size of half a furrow in a field. Then God did what two men could not. A panic spread through the camp, the ground itself shook, and the great army began to melt away. Israel's hidden soldiers came out of their caves and joined a victory that started with a perhaps.

Most decisions that require faith arrive without a guarantee. You apply for the job, start the business, have the hard conversation, move the family, begin the treatment, offer the forgiveness. God has not told you how it will end. Many of us read that silence as a reason to stay under the pomegranate tree until certainty arrives.

Jonathan offers a way forward. He separated two questions that we often tangle together. Can God do this? Yes, without limit. Will God do this, here, today? Perhaps. He let the first answer carry him while the second remained open. His confidence rested in God's character, so he did not need to control the result.

This is a freeing way to live. Presumption announces what God must do. Fear refuses to move until God signs a contract. Faith says, He is able, and I will take the step in front of me and watch for Him. Jonathan even built in a checkpoint, a moment to look for God's direction before going further. Trust and wisdom climbed the hill together.

The armor-bearer matters for families. Almost nobody climbs alone. Someone in your home may be facing a hill this week, and the most faithful thing you can offer is his sentence: I am with you heart and soul. You may be the one who needs to hear it.

The hill is still steep, and you may have to climb it on hands and feet. But the LORD is not hindered by how few you are or how little you hold.