Daily Walk

Monday, July 7th, 2008

During the past four days, I was made all the more aware of how much people need the Lord. We hear a great deal about the spiritual needs of many in other lands across the great expanses of salt water. Most of our Protestant denominations, particularly my own Southern Baptist affiliation, carry the burden of foreign missions. But what about the mission needs to reach out to folks in our own backyards? To quote one fine preacher I once heard, "We are putting our cart before the wheels when we are more adamant about taking the gospel message to distant lands, than we are about taking it to lost persons living all around us." He means here the very people with whom we work, and those people who live in our community.

One other insight I received this morning came from 2 Kings, the 19th chapter, verses 15 & 19:

"And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God
of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, Thou art God
even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou hast
made heaven and earth.
"Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou
us out of his (Sennacherib's) hand, that all the kingdoms of the
earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only."

Hezekiah was one of Judah's kings, and he was a godly man. Jerusalem was under siege by
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib was a vain and arrogant man who boasted that
his power was greater than God's power, and that Hezekiah's faith in his God and all his prayers
he prayed to Him would not prevent Sennacherib's army from overrunning Jerusalem.

What struck home with me was the closing words of his prayer to God: "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only." Hezekiah knew that God loved and cared for him and the people he was given by God to rule. But he also knew that God must receive all the credit and glory for all that was done so that other people would come to know He is the only really true God. God wants people everywhere today to see this truth about Him, and that He is the only one who can help them when they are in any trouble. Most important of all, He desires that people everywhere will come to believe that His Son Jesus Christ is the only one who can deliver them from sin's power and horrible penalty.

How He shows unbelievers this is not always in ways that suit us, His people. Sometimes He may choose to use sickness. Yes, Christians can and do lose their physical health. In some cases, mental health can suffer, too. I say this from a personal perspective, as I was diagnosed several years ago with severe depression. The supreme irony of all this is, He may see fit to show the unbelieving world His power to save and deliver a Christian from despair by allowing a Christian to go through times of despair. And yes, He wants to use those dark times in our lives to show us, His people, that He alone can bring us through them.

What He has shown me over the last several months is that He is just as interested in converting unbelievers into believers, as He is in protecting from harm those of us who are His born again children. This is where brokenness comes into action, where God targets areas which hinder us from becoming all He wants us to become. We are all very security minded people, and we want to hold on to what we hold dear to us. But those things we grasp onto so tightly are usually the very things which hold us back from truly relying upon our Father God. I want to write more about that in my next entry. Until then, may His peace carry you above every dark cloud in your life.