2 Kings 20:3: “‘Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.”

August 14th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

King Hezekiah was sick, and the prophet Isaiah came to him and told him the Lord said he would not live. This is the short prayer, one sentence actually, that Hezekiah prayed in response to the Lord’s word, which moved the hand of God to add 15 years to Hezekiah’s life. Notice that the king did not specifically ask to be healed. But God knew what was really in his heart, even if he didn’t express it. No doubt Hezekiah wept bitterly because he was only 39 years old and did not have a son; therefore, there was no heir to the throne of David. Hezekiah wisely turned to the Lord in this crisis.

We should be careful not to limit God when we cry out to Him. It’s so easy to put Him in a box roughly the size of our own minds. Andrew Murray said it this way:

Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do.

There is a problem when we get too specific in our prayers, thinking we know the best or only way for our problems to be solved. God has unlimited resources and unlimited options available to answer our needs, in ways we cannot even imagine. It also seems that God likes “to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20) just to surprise us. It seems He does this by putting us in impossible situations, so He can teach us to trust Him and to show off His greatness. If you’re not in a difficult circumstance now, you have or soon will be in one that only God can handle: health scare, family crises, financial stress, marriage difficulties, etc. When God allows you to come into a faith-stretching spot, remember who He is: the LORD, the sovereign I Am. We serve the God of the impossible. Let Him be that in your life today. Ask!

“LORD, we trust You to use us this day as we walk in dependence on You.”