Hearing God, Knowing God

1 Kings 2-- This has always been a very interesting chapter for me. I have to assume that a lot of details are left out of the narrative. Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, decides to attack Ahab, the wicked king of Israel. He lost a similar battle the year before, but because the battle had been fought on a mountain Ben-Hadad assumed that the "gods" of Israel were gods of the mountains and therefore weaker or powerless in the valleys. God tells Ahab, therefore, that He will destroy Ben-Hadad's massive forces in the valley as well to prove His omnipotence. He does exactly that.
Ben-Hadad runs away, hides in a city, and begs for mercy. Ahab, for reasons we can only guess at, makes a treaty with him and lets him go. This decision would prove disastrous for Israel in the future. God sends a prophet to rebuke Ahab for his disobedience. He should have consulted God before granting the treaty and he failed to do so. Similarly, a man disobeys the same prophet when the prophet tells the man to strike him (causing an injury). What person would obey this request under normal circumstances? But in this case, it was the word of God. Because the man refused, he was killed by a lion. I have to wonder how he was supposed to know that the prophet was speaking the word of God. This is the second time in the Bible God used a lion to kill someone who did not respect His word. See 1 Kings 13.
Anyway, after reading all of this I have been praying extra hard that God will help me to discern His voice out of all the other noise and chaos in the world, whether it be His voice directly or through fellow believers. The price of not listening for the voice of God and not seeking His will can be very expensive and also eternal, both for myself and for others. Even small disobedience has long-term effects.
It is also worth noting that part of this whole mess was the result of strife within God's people. Judah had originally paid Ben-Hadad to attack Israel because civil war was going on and Judah needed relief. Ben-Hadad capitalized on the situation some years later and attempted to do serious damage to Israel. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and the family of God is no exception. We need to be very careful how we handle internal problems and not give power to the enemy by attacking each other.
And finally, it struck me that Ben-Hadad's failure was the result of a faulty and limited worldview. A faulty worldview is hazardous, especially for a leader. There are many who think that government and religion do not and should not have an impact on each other. I think this story is a marvelous example of how the two can never be separated. The way a person believes influences every decision they make. If they believe wrong things, they make bad decisions. It is for that reason that I beg God to bring people into the US government who do not have faulty worldviews. Whether I agree with them on every policy or not, I desperately want the assurance that my leaders are making decisions based on an accurate understanding of God, man, truth, beauty, and science rather than on the latest whims of culture, cult, or flawed science.