Spread the Crisi Out before the Lord

Is it one of those weeks when things seem too tangled and knotted to untie? Problems too big to solve. A load too heavy to bear. Fear is sapping all your energy and it can only get worse – you fear. This is the big one and you’re just about finished. You’d 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 can’t rest. You’re having panic flashes, moments when your heart chokingly jumps to your throat. 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 . After reading about the dark spiritual failures of multiple kings, it’s refreshing to come across Hezekiah. But it wasn’t all smooth-reigning for this God-fearing monarch. There were severe threats from neighboring nations. The war talk was unrelenting and propaganda machines were working over time. Heavy handed intimidation tactics were being employed by King Sennacherib of the Assyrians. “Surrender and live or resist and die!”

Hezekiah knew ’s army was inferior in quantity and quality compared to the enemy. He could see no human way to resist the invasion. He prays. He tells the Prophet Isaiah: “we’re like a baby in the womb ripe 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 extremely threatening and totally blasphemous towards Hezekiah’s Almighty God.

Succumb to the threats? Roll over and die? Surrender? Wallow in despair? Throws your hands up in defeat? Lock yourself in a dark room and contemplate suicide?

Watch Hezekiah! He gathers up the threatening letter. He’s walking down the street towards 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?

“And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it:

and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD,

and spread it before the LORD.

And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD…”

2 Kings 19:14-15

“There it is Lord. I’ve spread the contents out before Thee – 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 Thee for there is no better One to come to in such a crisis.”

Out of that crisis, came one of the most God honoring prayers of faith 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 who also ‘happens to be’ the Almighty, Omnipotent, Can-Do-Anything God? Did you leave ‘it’ with Him or did you carry ‘it’ back out of the room again?

http://www.mygospellyrics.com/leave_it_there.htm

Warmly in Christ,

Peter Ramsay

Beatles' John Lennon: "I Want Out of Hell." Read the latest story on: www.heaven4sure.com