The King Who Stopped Leaning

Asa fought two battles, about twenty years apart. He won the first by prayer and the second by strategy, and Scripture counts only the first as a victory.

The first came early in his reign. Zerah the Cushite marched against Judah with an enormous force and three hundred chariots. Asa drew up his lines in the Valley of Zephathah, looked at the odds, and prayed.

O LORD, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude.

-- 2 Chronicles 14:11

The word translated rely is the Hebrew sha'an. It means to lean, to put your weight on something the way a tired man leans on a staff. Asa had nothing else to lean on, so he leaned on God entirely. The LORD struck the Cushite army, and Judah carried home more plunder than it could count.

Then came years of peace, prosperity, and reform. Asa grew experienced. His treasuries filled.

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The second battle was smaller. Baasha, king of Israel, began fortifying the town of Ramah to cut off the roads in and out of Judah. It was a blockade, serious but nothing like a million men.

This time there is no prayer in the account. Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the temple and the palace, sent them to Ben-hadad king of Syria, and paid him to break his treaty with Baasha and attack from the north. It was clever, and it worked. Baasha withdrew. Asa even hauled away the building materials from Ramah and used them for his own towns.

By every visible measure, he had won. Then a seer named Hanani came to the palace.

Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you.

-- 2 Chronicles 16:7

It is the same word, sha'an. Asa was still leaning, as every person does. He had only moved his weight to something else. Hanani reminded him of the Cushites and then spoke a sentence that is both a rebuke and an invitation.

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.

-- 2 Chronicles 16:9

God had been looking for a reason to help him. Asa had not given Him the chance. The king did not repent. He put Hanani in prison. In his last years, when disease attacked his feet, the chronicler notes with sadness that even then he did not seek the LORD.

Asa's story is uncomfortable because his second strategy succeeded. Nothing collapsed. If he had judged by results, he would have concluded that he had handled it well. The loss was invisible: a greater victory that never happened and a heart that had quietly learned to manage without God.

This is the particular danger of doing well. When we have no money, no contacts, and no experience, prayer comes easily because there is nowhere else to turn. As God blesses us, options multiply. There is a savings account, a friend in the right office, a skill we have proven many times. Each of these is a gift. Each can also become the thing we lean on, so that prayer moves from the first response to the last resort.

Notice where Asa's payment came from. He emptied the temple treasury to fund his alliance. The things we lean on in place of God usually cost us something that belonged to Him: our peace, our integrity, our time with Him, our family's attention.

The question this story asks is a simple one. What am I putting my weight on? You can ask it about this week's problem, including the small ones you feel able to handle alone. The size of the threat was never the point. God wants to be leaned on in the blockade as much as in the invasion.

Hanani's words remain open to anyone. God's eyes are moving across the earth right now, looking for a heart that is turned toward Him, in order to support it strongly. Asa's early prayer still works. You can pray it today, however long it has been.