The Frequency We Cannot Hear

In 1977, astronomers at the Big Ear radio telescope in Delaware, Ohio, detected a seventy-two-second signal from deep space — a burst of energy so powerful that volunteer researcher Jerry Ehman circled the data on his printout and scrawled "Wow!" in the margin. The signal had been streaming through that patch of sky long before anyone pointed a dish toward it. The reality preceded the detection.

Elisha's servant woke to an army encircling Dothan — horses, chariots, soldiers tightening like a noose. His panic was perfectly rational. Every piece of visible evidence confirmed they were finished. But Elisha, unbothered as a man watching rain from a dry porch, offered an arithmetic that made no earthly sense: "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."

Then the prophet prayed the most dangerous prayer in scripture — not for rescue, but for sight. "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." And suddenly the hills blazed with horses and chariots of fire, a heavenly garrison that had been stationed there all along, waiting for no one's permission to exist.

This is the relentless claim of 2 Kings: the visible empire is never the whole story. Aramean armies march, kings scheme, and famine gnaws at city walls — yet behind every crisis stands the unseen faithfulness of the Almighty. The chariots of fire did not appear when Elisha prayed. They were already there. Prayer simply tuned the servant's eyes to the frequency of what God had been doing all along.