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Faith Matters is pleased to announce that we will be partnering with For Little Saints to produce a new podcast for next year's Come Follow Me. Read one of the stories below.

And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

—2 Kings 6:16, KJV

This is a story about war. And there are many wars in the Bible. And a lot of them are described very simply. The righteous versus the wicked. The people that follow God versus the people that don’t. Good guys versus bad guys. And when the good guys win, it’s because they are good and when they lose it’s because they are being bad. But not every war is actually like that. Not every war in the Bible is like that. And this is the story of a war that was not like that at all.

It starts out like the others, with bad guys attacking the part of the family of Jacob in a place called Israel. So the family of Jacob gathered an army to defend itself. And every time the enemy was going to attack, the family of Jacob would ask the prophet Elisha to pray to God. And God would tell him the enemy’s plans, and Elisha would tell the king. And the king would send his army to the right place at the right time to defeat their enemy, so the bad guys couldn’t break through.

So the leader of the bad guys had an idea. “Let’s stop attacking Israel and attack Elisha instead,” he said. And so the entire army began to march. And they climbed a hill, and found Elisha’s home nestled down in a valley. And they surrounded the home, and took out their swords, put on their armor, mounted their horses, and the leader yelled, “Charge!”

Elisha first noticed them when he went to the well to gather water. He was about to make himself some tea. He could hear the distant pounding horse hoofs, but Elisha didn’t run. Instead, he scooped water from the well into a pot. Then he could see a plume of dust, but Elisha didn’t hide. Instead he poured the water from the pot into a kettle and placed the kettle on the stove. Then he could hear war cries and the clanking of swords, but Elisha didn’t grab a weapon, instead he added some herbs.

Then Elisha’s servant came running. “Look out the window!” he yelled. “The bad guys are coming!” But Elisha just warmed his hands over the kettle. “What are you doing?” his servant cried. “Before that tea is ready, we will all be dead!”

Elisha smiled and patted his servant’s arm. “Ah, friend, I am afraid you don’t see what I see. All you can see is bad guys attacking a helpless prophet. I see something very different. Look again and God will show you what I see.”

And so Elisha’s servant looked again. He squinted. The bad guys were close enough that he was just beginning to make out their faces. They were fierce. They were yelling. They were terrifying. But then, he saw something else, faint at first, like heat waves rising from the kettle. A mist, a mirage, a silvery something. There were angels with wings, and it seemed like they were holding spears and swords. They were outside of the door and in the trees and covering the sky. There were more angels than the entire bad guy army.

And the servant understood. Elisha wasn’t scared of the approaching army because the bad guys were running into an ambush. Any moment now the army of angels would materialize and utterly destroy the bad guys. What chance do they have against angels? And then Elisha would sit to admire his victory, and drink his tea, and laugh at all the bad guys who had died. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, Elisha asked the angels to make the bad guys blind. And that’s what happened. And Elisha drank his tea and then started to lead the bad guy army, helping them find their way in the new, absolute, interminable darkness. And Elisha’s servant thought he knew what would happen next. Elisha would lead them all right off a cliff so they would never, ever attack the family of Jacob again. But that’s not what happened either.

Instead, Elisha led the entire army all the way to the capital of Israel. The very place the bad guys had been trying to reach. The place they hoped to conquer. And Elisha just opened the gates, and let them inside. And the army of Israel cheered. Elisha had delivered the entire bad-guy-army into their hands. Now they would throw them in jail or kill them or turn them into slaves. And Israel would rejoice because God had defeated another army for them.

But that is also not what happened. Instead, Elisha told the people to look again. And this time, instead of seeing angels, they saw the blind army. And they looked deep into their eyes. There is something about looking into the eyes of a person who cannot look back. They were completely vulnerable and helpless, and the people of Israel saw something they’d never noticed before. They saw terror, they saw fear, they saw desperation. And they realized that the bad guys were not bad guys at all. They were just people. People who were scared of dying. People who had families, and wives and children back home. People who played games and laughed and celebrated holidays and enjoyed stargazing and blushed at compliments. People who wrote poems and loved music and told stories and sat around fires talking late into the night. The people of Israel saw all of this and more.

And Elisha restored sight to the blind army and then told the people of Israel to bring them food and water. But instead of some soup, or jerky or day-old bagels, the people prepared a whole feast. And they ate, and sang songs and danced like they were celebrating a holiday together. And they were. For only a few times in history have armies put down their swords and differences and met like this. And each time it was a miracle.

And each time it was a revelation. A realization. A chance to see the world more accurately. That there are precious few bad guys. And that doesn’t mean there aren’t wars or death or tragedy or crimes or suffering. That’s all real. But so is this. There are many many many many more good people in this world than bad ones. There are more people for us than against us. There is more love than hate. More caring than indifference. More humanity than its opposite.

And this will not always seem true. At times it will seem like nobody cares, or people are selfish, and cruel. And when you feel this way, look again. It’s not that you’re wrong. It’s just that there’s something else too. Heat waves rising over the kettle. A soft light, a mirage, a silvery something. And if you look, you will see them. The terrified soldiers, the golden angels, the enemy, the friend. In the end they are all part of us. And though we might not know it yet, we are fighting for each other.

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This is an excerpt from The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, by Sarah Perkins and Joshua Sabey, authors of The Book of Mormon Storybook. Both volumes of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament are available to preorder now!

Faith Matters is pleased to announce that we will be producing the audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament as a podcast for listeners of all ages to enjoy. Everyone will be able to listen to 25 of the 50 stories, completely free. We’re so excited to make these stories available to you! You can support this work by inviting your friends to listen, and by becoming a paid Substack subscriber or Friend of Faith Matters donor. As a thank you, donors and paid subscribers will have access to the entire Bible Storybook audiobook and the Book of Mormon Storybook audiobook via a private podcast link. Thank you for your generous support! Please email us at info@faithmatters.org if you have any questions about your donation or need help accessing the private episodes.

We will be uploading the full Book of Mormon Storybook in the coming weeks, and episodes of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament will be released starting in 2026 to align with Come Follow Me. Follow Scripture Stories for Little Saints on Spotify or Apple Podcasts now to be notified of new episodes! To be notified of new episodes via email, go to faithmatters.org/account and turn on notifications for Scripture Stories for Little Saints.