2nd Kings Chapter 20. Is your heart really broken?
King Hezekiah of Judah became ill at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah came to him and told him that he would die and not recover. As a result, King Hezekiah turned his face to the Lord and prayed and wept bitterly asking for God's favor. He was truly broken before God.
Before the prophet was able to leave the palace, God had him go back and tell King Hezekiah that the Lord heard his prayer and would add 15 years to his life. And God did.
What is key to me is that our hearts need to be broken before God. Our lives need to be surrendered to him. We must trust God always. I'm not saying if we do these things that God will respond by giving us everything we want. God is not our puppet. But I can guarantee this, when we surrender all and are broken before God, we can be assured that he's in control and that opens the door for him to work as he desires. His intervention might be a miracle of recovery and healing and it might be our life is taken or we face trials and tribulations. In amongst the outcome we can rest in peace because we know God is in control and he's at work.
I spoke with a godly man yesterday who lost his wife to cancer. He had prayed and wept before the Lord and believed his wife would be healed, but she died. Having the right heart doesn't mean God answers our prayers our way. God's answer to our prayers is accomplishing things we can't see and therefore don't understand. We end up questioning God verses rejoicing. If we could see the spiritual world then we could gain an understanding of why God's plan is better than our plans. We tend to think solely on self and how it will affect me me me. Meanwhile, God is looking at lives all over the place. Death can have an impact on so many lives for the good, including the life of the person who died. We can't let our very limited minds be the filter we use to interpret what happens in life. We must use our heart of faith in God, trusting him and believing in what he will accomplish through our given situation. The key questions to me in our life circumstances are:
1. Is our heart truly broken before God?
2. Is all our life surrendered to him?
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Most of us don’t know when our time that we have in our physical bodies will end, but we read in this chapter that the Lord gave Hezekiah an extra 15 years of life so Hezekiah knew how long he would have. I thought that the sign was also interesting in how the shadow went back 10 steps. I’m not sure if God caused the earth to rotate the opposite way during that time or what exactly He did in that process of moving the direction of the shadow, but the important thing is that God made it happen.
I’m reminded of Psalm 86:15.
“But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”