Is it one of those weeks when you are asking: does praying help? Do things seem too tangled and knotted to untie? Are problems too complex to solve? Or is your load too heavy to bear? Fear is sapping all your energy, and it will only get worse – you fear. You would like to rest in the knowledge that “with the Lord all things are possible,” and that “nothing is too difficult for the Lord to do,” but you cannot rest. You are feeling waves of panic and despair. The knot in your stomach is causing you pain, and you can see no way out of this one!
Hezekiah was an outstanding king of Judah. It’s refreshing to come across Hezekiah after reading the failures of multiple kings. But it wasn’t all smooth-reigning for this God-fearing monarch. There were severe threats from neighbouring nations. The war talk was unrelenting, and the propaganda machines were working overtime. Heavy-handed intimidation tactics were being employed by King Sennacherib of the Assyrians. “Surrender and live or resist and die!”
Hezekiah knew Judah’s army was inferior in both quantity and quality compared to the enemy. He could see no human way to stop the invasion. He tells the Prophet Isaiah: “we’re like a baby in the womb, full-term, and ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to bring the baby out.” Isaiah advises him to keep trusting the Lord and not to fear the blasphemous words of Sennacherib’s men.
But then a letter from Sennacherib himself arrives, telling Hezekiah not to believe for one minute the encouraging words of Isaiah. His espionage agents had picked up on Isaiah’s words from the Lord to Hezekiah. This last message from Sennacherib was highly threatening and totally blasphemous towards Hezekiah’s Almighty God.
Succumb to the threats? Roll over and die? Surrender? Wallow in despair? Throw your hands up in defeat? Lock yourself in a dark room and wait for the worst to happen?
Watch Hezekiah! He gathers up the threatening letter and walks down the street to the House of God. Watch him lift his feet as he walks up the steps. See him clutch the blasphemous letter. Now he’s inside alone with God. Does he stand and lift his head upwards to the sky? Or, does he kneel and take the letter and roll it out on the bench or the floor before him?
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see … 2 Kings 19:14-16
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“There it is, Lord. I’ve spread the contents out before You – piece by piece. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line and word by word; I am spreading it out in its entirety before Your Holy all-seeing eyes. I am coming to You, for there is no better One to come to in such a crisis.”
One of the most God-honouring prayers of faith came out of that crisis recorded in the Bible. You can read it in 2 Kings 19. And you can also read the Lord’s response.
Do you have a situation that’s too big for you? Although the crisis was too big for Hezekiah, he knew it wasn’t too big for His God. Have you taken your present ‘threat’ – the entire situation into a quiet room and spent time alone with God? Have you spread ‘it’ all out before your Heavenly Father, the Almighty, Omnipotent, Can-Do-Anything God? Did you leave it with Him, or did you carry it back out of the room again?
Walk carefully and closely with the Lord today.
Warmly in Christ,
Peter Ramsay
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