What do you do when you receive bad news? There are a lot of different reactions that can be seen in people, they may blame the situation or the circumstance, they may blame God, they may break down and cry, or they may put their hope in God. That last one can be one of the hardest things that we can do because it causes us to realize that we are helpless and can’t control everything in our lives. There are many examples that we can see in the Bible of people receiving bad news, but one that I think is worth focusing on would be Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19:14-19. His reaction should show us how we should act when we feel powerless.
For some background, Jerusalem was surrounded by Sennacherib and the army of Assyria. In verse 14 Hezekiah was given a letter of the things that Sennacherib was saying about abandoning God because of how his people have overcome all the other gods around them. When he read this, Hezekiah’s reaction was to pray and in verse 15 he says “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.” Notice how he points out that God is the one who rules all the creation. He recognized the fact that God has the power that can save him and his people, so he turns to plead with God. This is the first step in realizing why we need to turn to God. He has shown his power and that he can and will take care of His people.
Hezekiah then continues and points out that Assyria have laid waste to all these other gods, but they were nothing more than the work of men’s hands. Hezekiah recognized that God was different than any other thing that people put their hope in because he is the creator God. In the same way, we should recognize that God would be different from every other thing on the earth because he can make more of a difference for us. When Hezekiah was face to face with his possible death, he turned to God and trusted that he would make all the difference.
Hezekiah finishes out his prayer to God by praying that Judah would be saved from the Assyrians and that the kingdoms of the earth would know that He is God alone. Hezekiah asked God to make the difference, but he added that last bit to show what great things could come about God acting for Judah. Hezekiah not only believed God could save Judah, but he believed that God would save them. Isaiah then came and told Hezekiah that God heard him and that he was going to save them. Hezekiah immediately put his trust in God to save himself. What do we do when we are facing an enemy that seems unbeatable? What we should do is what Hezekiah did and turn to God and pray for him to save us.
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