"Have You Seen This????"

Scripture Passage

2 Kings 19:1-19; Isaiah 37:1-20; 2 Chronicles 32:9-19; 2 Kings 19:20-37; Isaiah 37:21-38; 2 Chronicles 32:20-23

Scripture Focus

After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the LORD’s Temple and spread it out before the LORD.  (2 Kings 19:14 NLT)

Observation

It’s almost comical—this image of Hezekiah laying out this letter before the Lord. Hezekiah basically prays, “Lord, have you seen this?!? Do you know what this says?!?”—as if God might say, “No—wow—hadn’t seen that yet!”

And, of course, the whole story is wonderful (it actually begins in yesterday’s reading—go back if you didn't get that done). Judah is under Assyrian attack, and the Assyrians are using every trick in the book to press their attack, including intensive broadcasting of political propaganda (à la Tokyo Rose during WWII or Radio Free Europe during the Cold War). But King Hezekiah appeals to the prophet Isaiah for a word from the Lord, and Isaiah brings a word of miraculous deliverance—a word that comes true just as God promised!

The thing I like today is the very thing that makes me smile—Hezekiah’s physical, tangible, concrete action when approaching God in prayer. It not only reveals Hezekiah’s desperation for God to act—in my mind, at least, it must have helped connect (for Hezekiah) the spiritual activity of prayer with the tangible need in Hezekiah’s world. Hezekiah is in dire straits, desperate for God to move. So he grabs what he can—he carts something into the prayer closet with him—not in an act of shamanism or spiritual manipulation, but just as an expression of need. And I say…

Why not? Why not bring before the Lord some symbol…some expression…some icon that tangibly identifies the way in which I’m desperate for God to move. Maybe it’s a letter from a loved one…or a report from the doctor…or a bank statement…or a layoff notice…or the business card of someone for whose salvation I am praying. Whatever it is, could it become a way to tie the spiritual realm into my earthly reality?

Hezekiah’s actions make me wonder if we’ve not made prayer a little too reserved and cerebral—if maybe we’re not desperate enough…if maybe we’re just a little too passionless in our praying. I don’t want to be there, Lord—I want all that I am to reflect the desperate pursuit of You!

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