What Do You Do, When You Don’t Know What To Do?

Today’s Passage – Isaiah 33 – 36 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – click here to view the text from the Blue Letter Bible website)

(Second Milers also read – John 5 – 6; Psalms 26 – 30; Proverbs 26)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Psalm 47:1

Read the “0806 Evening and Morning” devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read a previous post from today’s passage – “Streams in the Desert”

“Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.” (Isaiah 36:22)

Chapter 36 of the Book of Isaiah is the beginning of an historical portion of the Book which will end in chapter 39. You will notice that the style of writing changes completely for just these 4 chapters, and you will find the story that is told in this portion of Scripture is also found in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. In chapter 36, we read the beginning of the story and we learn about a huge problem that had come upon King Hezekiah and the City of Jerusalem. Here, we discovered that an extremely powerful army from Assyria had surrounded the city and was threatening to utterly destroy it unless the people surrendered everything. How would you like to be in King Hezekiah’s shoes at this particular time in history? He is facing an impossible situation and he really has very few options. He could fight them because the Assyrian army was infinitely more powerful than Jerusalem’s defenses. It seems from the context that Hezekiah may have considered getting help from Egypt, but even the Egyptians were no match for Assyria. Jerusalem was completely powerless to do anything on their own; they were utterly helpless. What did Hezekiah do? What would you do if you were King Hezekiah?

Well, we will find out tomorrow what Hezekiah does, but let’s consider just for a moment what we should do when we are faced with impossible problems in life. God has a way of getting our complete attention through tragic and difficult situations. Sometimes, God allows the rug to be pulled out from underneath our feet so that we will have to look up to Him to see what happened. Through much of life we seem to be able to figure out on our own, but every once in a while God will allow something to take place that will drive us to our knees in total dependence upon Him for a solution. As Christians, we are supposed to be trusting God every day for everything, but unfortunately our flesh likes to think that it can “do life” on its own, all by itself. God is very patient and gracious with us, but eventually, when we stray too far from Him in our independence and stubbornness, He will do something to get our complete attention. It is a shame that we cannot learn to pay a little more attention to Him before the impossible problems surround us and painful tragedies come our way.

Why don’t we take a moment right now and ask God to forgive us for our lack of attention to Him and our failure to depend upon Him. Let’s commit to trusting Him today to guide and direct the decisions that we make, and let’s be sure to thank Him for His abundant provision and divine protection. And, by all means, if you are facing the trial of your life today and you don’t have a clue about what you should do, then do what Hezekiah did: go to God. It may be that God will deliver you from your problem just as He delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrian army. But, even if He doesn’t take the problem completely away, He can minimize it, and He also promises to give abundant grace that will help guide you as you go through it.