Why Should You Suppose?

"But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down." -2 Chronicles 25:8

I read this the other day and was incredibly encouraged by these words. Here's the story. The king of Judah was getting ready for a battle. He mustered thousands of men of Judah for this battle, and then he went and hired another 100,000 men from Israel, paying them silver to join the cause. A man of God came to him and essentially told him that he shouldn't have done that and that the Israelites should not go out to battle with him. Then the verse that caught my eye: "But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down."

Amaziah's choice to hire all those extra men seemed to demonstrate something he was supposing - that God would otherwise cast him down. That perhaps only with the help of extra soldiers would he be victorious. And I think this verse grabbed my attention and tugged at my heart because, whether consciously or subconsciously, I've been supposing defeat in my own life. I head into a day, knowing that the battle against sin is a hard one, knowing also that God has given all that I need to win it, but still somehow coming to the conclusion that no matter how hard I try, my sin (most frequently my anxiety) will at some point just get the best of me, and I'll have to just try again tomorrow. Why would I suppose this? God has the power to help or cast down, and somehow I choose to believe that He will choose the latter, when over and over again in my life His help has been a very real presence. I want to suppose the BEST of my God - why would I choose the alternative?