“O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.” 2 Kings 19:15 (NIV)
Surrounded by 185,000 enemy troops, who comprised an army that had never lost a battle in its conquest of the world, King Hezekiah listened to a message that, in essence, said, “Surrender and we’ll let your people live as slaves. Otherwise, we’re coming in to kill.”
With nowhere else to turn, Hezekiah took the matter to God. If it were my crisis, my prayer would probably start like this: “God, do you realize that there’s an army surrounding us! They’re planning to kill us in the morning! Why aren’t you doing something about this?”
But Hezekiah praised God before anything else: “O Lord, God of Israel . . . you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.”
He sought God first, in worship, before asking for anything. He voiced the truth that God was bigger than the bogeymen outside the gates of Jerusalem. Then, almost as an afterthought, Hezekiah said, “Oh yeah, there’s this big army outside. God, we don’t know what to do, so we’re looking to you.”
When we maximize our problems, we minimize God’s greatness and we also minimize—in our minds—God’s ability to handle our problems.
Hezekiah acknowledged God’s sovereignty and power over the facts of the situation, and that lifted the crisis above the thinking of mere men and placed it right into the loving lap of the One, True, Supreme Being of the universe. We can’t, but God can.
The next morning, Hezekiah looked out across the enemy encampments that surrounded his people and he saw the invading army laid waste by an Angel of God (2 Kings 19:35).
God, we don’t know what to do, so we’re looking to you.
By Jon Walker
Used by Permission
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