Daily devotion – place it before the Lord
2 Kings 19: 14 And 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. 15 Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said: “O LORD God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17 Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. 19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone.”
There are times in our lives when we simply do not know what to do when a major crisis hits us. In our opening text, Hezekiah the king of Judah, had received a brutal letter from Sennacherib the wicked king of Assyria, blaspheming the God of Israel and threatening the people of Judah.
But I love what Hezekiah does here and this passage has marked my life forever since the day I studied it. Hezekiah doesn’t throw the towel in. He does not collapse in an emotional heap.
Neither does he try to come up with a brainstorming solution.
No, instead, he simply takes the actual letter before the Lord and lays it out before God. In a way of declaring, God this is my problem, here it is right before your eyes, help me and tell me what to do!
God answers Hezekiah’s prayer through the prophet Isaiah and sends an angel into the camp of the Assyrians and wipes out 185,000 of the enemy, just one angel!
The next time you face a situation that is too much, follow Hezekiah’s lead and lay it out in plain sight before God, and He will bring to pass victory like you never could imagine.