May 10, 2018

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE:

TO HELP ME WHEN I AM DESPERATE (part 1)

II Kings 20:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. 2 Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD…

How would you like to get that call? The voice on the other end of the phone tells you that you do not have long to live. Some of you reading this may have received a call like that, or had a doctor on the other side of the desk tell you those words. I have personally never been through something like that. I have had doctors tell me that my son might not live long, or that he may not make it through a surgery. It is kind of like getting punched in the stomach. You briefly stop breathing while you are trying to process the information. This is only the start of the long, emotional, spiritual battle that you will fight. People handle tragic news different ways. Some people get mad, some get hurt, some get numb, and many get confused. “Why”, “what did I do to deserve this”,  and “now what”, are just a few of the questions that enter your mind.

Now imagine that you get that phone call, and find out that the voice on the other end is God Himself. That is not good news, because if God is the one saying that to you, it sounds like He has already made up His mind. That does not leave much hope. Normally, when you get news like that, you then go to God to see if prayer can change the situation.  But when the news comes from God, where do you go? What do you do?

Hezekiah decided to pray anyway. What a great lesson for us. Pray anyway! What is it going to hurt? What harm could it do? Who knows what God might do? Before we even get into what his prayer accomplished, let’s realize that nothing will be accomplished if we don’t pray. Much of the time in our lives, it is not that our prayers have no power, it is the fact that there are no prayers. We have already given up, we have already lost hope, or we really just don’t care. When we get desperate, we pray. And when we pray, God listens. And when God listens, things change. God does not always say “yes”, God does not always say “no”, but God always “listens”.

Yes, maybe you have prayed for some answers that have not happened yet. Maybe you have prayed for a child that has not come back to God yet. Maybe you have prayed for healing that hasn’t come yet. Maybe it feels as if God Himself made the call. Do what Hezekiah did. Pray anyway!