"At that time [the king of Babylon] sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things...Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah...'Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house...shall be carried to Babylon, nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.'" Isaiah 39:1-8
This was not a punishment; this was a reality check. Hezekiah's flaunting did not cause the Babylonian exile; the exile was an inevitable consequence from things before Hezekiah's time. What God did here was demonstrate to him how the impending exile rendering all his flaunting foolishness, i.e., shatter his supposed reality with His true Reality. "Why do you treat like friends those who are not your friends? Why are you obsessing with that which does not matter?" Good question.
One of the biggest caveats to being a Christian in the modern world (both of the East and West) is the danger of being swept up into a corporate consumeristic materialism. This is not merely "mega church" syndrome. This is "the American Dream" syndrome. If you want to do or be anything or something around these parts (or so we are told), you need money, status, and power. To get that, you must throw yourself, body and soul, into the world corporate machine, or into a business endeavor. You have to "know people," you have to "schmooze," play politics, jump through hoops, dance, play ball, etc., etc. The tragic irony of it all is that once you have finally got the money, status, and power, your life is now consumed with the pursuit of them, and all spiritual applications of your life are left to the back burner. In trying to be useful to God, we become absolutely useless. In trying to serve Him, we serve ourselves. In trying to love Him, we become friends of this world. If one could just stand back and take in the whole horrific scope of our "busy-ness," our frittering and fluttering about, one would be led to ask, "What are we doing?"
God does not need money, either yours or others. He does not need your talents and abilities. He does not need your usefulness. He does not need your wit or wisdom. He does not need your pluck or personality. He does not need your humor. He does not need your sense of fashion or style. He does not need your creativity or "new" ideas. He does not need your strength or determination. He does not need your political candidate. He does not need your political party. He does not need your country. He does not need your denomination. He does not need your translation of the Bible. He does not need you to save souls. He does not need your service. He does not need your praise. He does not need your sermons and your lessons. He does not need what you "know." He does not need what you are. He does not need anything. What He wants, what His will is for you is (please pardon the cliche) for you to "let go and let God," i.e., stop trying to tell God what kind of person He gets to use and start letting Him make you into the person that He wants to use, i.e., a spitting image of Himself, a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).
Jesus Christ is not a cookie cutter. God is not monotony, sterility, and generality. All the unique elements of your person that He created will be brought to bear in a life of Christ-likeness. However, all those elements too often become distractions and hindrances to God's will for us when we get wrapped up in them and not in Him. "Oh God! I am so beautiful! So witty! So talented! So smart! So useful!" No you are not. You are nothing without Him (John 15:5). You can offer Him nothing (Philippians 3:4-11). All you can offer (pardon another cliche) is yourself (Romans 12:1), the real you, the one unhindered by fleeting wishes, wants, desires, and ambitions. God wants to take our fading dreams and gives us His own eternal ones, to make His desire our own. That can only happen when we stop dictating to Him how things are going to work and start being swept up into Him.
We so easily take our eye off of the ball. God does not need anything from us, nor does He even need us. The wonder is that (despite His lack of need) He still wants to use us, to take us into Himself and make us one with Him; but to do it as He says, not as we say. We do not know ourselves as well as He does. What we see as a talent could actually be a hindrance that must be removed, and what we see as a triviality (or even a weakness) could actually be what God plans to use (What good are the skills of a shepherd on the field of battle? And yet the giant was not slain by a warrior). The key here is that we do not get wrapped up in ourselves, in what we "can" and "cannot" do or be; but get wrapped up in God, Who He is, what He does, and what He is doing and being through us. To put it simply: keep your eye on the ball, i.e., God. That was king Hezekiah's foul--He thought he knew what was up, what he was doing. God demonstrated that he did not: "You think you know what's up? Here's the reality. All 'your' greatness, I will give to Babylon."
Do we keep our eye on the ball? Do we live in the reality of God? Do we walk in that light? Do we realize that life is found, not in doing things or being something for Him, but by being swept up into Him (John 17:3)? Do we realize (as Lewis put it) that our lives are "a perpetual Evangel, a story written by the finger of God," and not written by our own finger? Are we ready and willing to stop distracting ourselves with our own stories, our own plans and our own knowledge, and let God take us "further up and further in" to the adventure that is Himself? Are we finally ready to stop flaunting our feathers before Babylonian kings and start letting all become shadows as we stand in the light of His presence? That is true Christianity; that is what it means to be "Christ-like"; that is eternal life. The burning question is, "Are you ready?"
"Let Your Presence, like a fire
Burn all dross and tin away.
Lead me ever away from me,
And take me further up and further in
To You..."
-Jon Vowell
This was not a punishment; this was a reality check. Hezekiah's flaunting did not cause the Babylonian exile; the exile was an inevitable consequence from things before Hezekiah's time. What God did here was demonstrate to him how the impending exile rendering all his flaunting foolishness, i.e., shatter his supposed reality with His true Reality. "Why do you treat like friends those who are not your friends? Why are you obsessing with that which does not matter?" Good question.
One of the biggest caveats to being a Christian in the modern world (both of the East and West) is the danger of being swept up into a corporate consumeristic materialism. This is not merely "mega church" syndrome. This is "the American Dream" syndrome. If you want to do or be anything or something around these parts (or so we are told), you need money, status, and power. To get that, you must throw yourself, body and soul, into the world corporate machine, or into a business endeavor. You have to "know people," you have to "schmooze," play politics, jump through hoops, dance, play ball, etc., etc. The tragic irony of it all is that once you have finally got the money, status, and power, your life is now consumed with the pursuit of them, and all spiritual applications of your life are left to the back burner. In trying to be useful to God, we become absolutely useless. In trying to serve Him, we serve ourselves. In trying to love Him, we become friends of this world. If one could just stand back and take in the whole horrific scope of our "busy-ness," our frittering and fluttering about, one would be led to ask, "What are we doing?"
God does not need money, either yours or others. He does not need your talents and abilities. He does not need your usefulness. He does not need your wit or wisdom. He does not need your pluck or personality. He does not need your humor. He does not need your sense of fashion or style. He does not need your creativity or "new" ideas. He does not need your strength or determination. He does not need your political candidate. He does not need your political party. He does not need your country. He does not need your denomination. He does not need your translation of the Bible. He does not need you to save souls. He does not need your service. He does not need your praise. He does not need your sermons and your lessons. He does not need what you "know." He does not need what you are. He does not need anything. What He wants, what His will is for you is (please pardon the cliche) for you to "let go and let God," i.e., stop trying to tell God what kind of person He gets to use and start letting Him make you into the person that He wants to use, i.e., a spitting image of Himself, a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).
Jesus Christ is not a cookie cutter. God is not monotony, sterility, and generality. All the unique elements of your person that He created will be brought to bear in a life of Christ-likeness. However, all those elements too often become distractions and hindrances to God's will for us when we get wrapped up in them and not in Him. "Oh God! I am so beautiful! So witty! So talented! So smart! So useful!" No you are not. You are nothing without Him (John 15:5). You can offer Him nothing (Philippians 3:4-11). All you can offer (pardon another cliche) is yourself (Romans 12:1), the real you, the one unhindered by fleeting wishes, wants, desires, and ambitions. God wants to take our fading dreams and gives us His own eternal ones, to make His desire our own. That can only happen when we stop dictating to Him how things are going to work and start being swept up into Him.
We so easily take our eye off of the ball. God does not need anything from us, nor does He even need us. The wonder is that (despite His lack of need) He still wants to use us, to take us into Himself and make us one with Him; but to do it as He says, not as we say. We do not know ourselves as well as He does. What we see as a talent could actually be a hindrance that must be removed, and what we see as a triviality (or even a weakness) could actually be what God plans to use (What good are the skills of a shepherd on the field of battle? And yet the giant was not slain by a warrior). The key here is that we do not get wrapped up in ourselves, in what we "can" and "cannot" do or be; but get wrapped up in God, Who He is, what He does, and what He is doing and being through us. To put it simply: keep your eye on the ball, i.e., God. That was king Hezekiah's foul--He thought he knew what was up, what he was doing. God demonstrated that he did not: "You think you know what's up? Here's the reality. All 'your' greatness, I will give to Babylon."
Do we keep our eye on the ball? Do we live in the reality of God? Do we walk in that light? Do we realize that life is found, not in doing things or being something for Him, but by being swept up into Him (John 17:3)? Do we realize (as Lewis put it) that our lives are "a perpetual Evangel, a story written by the finger of God," and not written by our own finger? Are we ready and willing to stop distracting ourselves with our own stories, our own plans and our own knowledge, and let God take us "further up and further in" to the adventure that is Himself? Are we finally ready to stop flaunting our feathers before Babylonian kings and start letting all become shadows as we stand in the light of His presence? That is true Christianity; that is what it means to be "Christ-like"; that is eternal life. The burning question is, "Are you ready?"
"Let Your Presence, like a fire
Burn all dross and tin away.
Lead me ever away from me,
And take me further up and further in
To You..."
-Jon Vowell
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