Your country is under siege, you’re out of food, hunger pains got you buying dove's dung for supper; and some of your fellows are turning into cannibals.

2 Kings 6:28-29 reads;

[28]And the king said to her, What ails you? She answered, This woman said to me, Give me your son so we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.

[29]So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, Give your son so we may eat him, but she had hidden her son.

With that, and so much more going on, then one man, to some the so-called man of God, shows up only to declare a state of peace in 24 hours, that things will get back to normal after I don’t know how long on end, and that they shall have plenty, to the extent that tribulation will remain in the books.

All that in just 24 hours?!

In 2 Kings 7:1-2 the Bible says;

[1]THEN ELISHA said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will sell for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria!

[2]Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, If the Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be? But Elisha said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

Just imagine the turn of the state of affairs like that. So unprecedented hence unreasonable, that a certain man had to brush it off blatantly.

With the real situation, with human calculations, he was right.

It’s one of my favorite stories.

Well, let’s get to what put this here.

Determination.

“Settlement of a controversy by the judge or by reasoning.” This is how the late middle English had it.

There is a lot to it, but my personal favorite translation is, “That which is determined upon; result of deliberation; purpose; conclusion formed; fixed resolution.”

It's about how we make choices and handle our life, one of the reasons we feel like we’re in greater control of ourselves.

But basically it all goes down to how we really feel after we have accomplished something, anything with that intent, the intrinsic motivation, that awesome feeling of accomplishment no matter what you receive externally.

Motivation stems from determination btw.

I remember having that feeling during my third year at the uni, after all the ups and downs (tests, courseworks etc.)

Looking back, it gave me a sense of having come a long way, as a result I became more determined to stay on my toes, going even further by changing my bios to being a Psychologist.

The future was scorning me.

The first year and my sophomore were one helluva roller coaster, anxiety, stress and depressive episodes were the norm, academics were out of the question.

I used to secretly hit the imaginary comfort, though every sip kept reminding me of my father (R.I.P).

Relationships, yes those ones, were a mystery, except for one miraculous smash and dash with a certain angel I shared the course with, whom obviously had no deep feelings for me.

I had no friends, except for one true broski who meant what a friend should be.

I was insanely reserved, and so much into some who knows what kind of dark twisted ups and downs.

And I was the oldest in class.

Just “Black ink in my dark pages.”

Yet, I remained determined to graduate, I just couldn’t wait. With my track record, I started planning for my graduation ceremony.

Then, a few months later, kaboom!

My UE results kicked me so bad that I never thought I once was so determined to graduate, that my socials had to be ahead of my time (Psychologist).

For the first time I knew what a carry over meant. I still can’t calculate GPA, it’s not what took me there on the first place. Never had a single sup, well, not a strange experience, but a carry-over during the last semester of your last academic year meant too much to bear.

Hell yeah! Joining the herd you left behind, because your own moved on, and you got stuck.

To some, one could claim they had no option, I felt the same first day I saw the results, but I still had plenty, that’s why I opted to go back and hustle again, with the same determination until I felt, “damn I did it" and maybe that’s a tiny bit of it.

Determination has its ways, just like how it is for motivation.

One of them is growth. Think of baby steps in any undertaking on how we show the willingness to get there, yes from sitting to crawling, standing attempts, the fallings, the firm standings, walking, running etc. Every phase comes with the urge for accomplishments through new experiences, and that’s determination.

Sometimes it’s competence because of, not only the feeling we get out of how we outdo the rest, but the excitement that comes with it plays an important part in determination.

Also the freedom to act or function independently brings it on.

Determination, therefore, self-determination in particular, stems from a number of ways, be it growth, competence or autonomy, among others.

One of the three or none of them (who knows), might have driven the four lepers.

How about autonomy, if it’s one of the three?

Check it…

2 Kings 7:3-4

[3]Now four men who were lepers were at the entrance of the city's gate; and they said to one another, Why do we sit here until we die?

[4]If we say, We will enter the city then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we sit still here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the army of the Syrians. If they spare us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.

Imagine that! And they were just lepers.

The law of Leprosy is documented in Leviticus 13-14.

A leper was believed to be unclean. They went through a lot, exclusion was one of them.

Considering a leper worthless was worthwhile; nobody hardly thought about them as being of any significance.

How could someone who’s just a beggar, on top of that a leper, bring about liberation? And they didn’t even mention God, or consciously do anything for His sake.

It was pure determination.

They used to be at the entrance of the city’s gate, their begging spot, but it wasn’t the same anymore, so they had to figure out the alternative.

They made a move after the question, then some assumptions. A good tip, what do you think? We barely do that right?

Such determination set them in motion which in turn set besiegers running away because God intervened.

It's awesome how God gets between us and our enemies, but He obviously waits for our first move.

Determination, that's the first move.

Read 2 Kings 7:1-20

Kindly read my story here: https://urlshortner.org/PQypy