TRUST SERIES: A Thrashing Fish

Some days I feel like a fish thrashing around in a net. I am trying to relax and trust God and not worry about things but I fight battles with my own doubts, with conflicting emotions and with outward circumstances (discord in relationships, lingering health issues, leaking roofs, broken appliances, you choose your issue and fill in the blank here ________. It maybe something large or something small that most of the population would consider a “first world” problem).

I continue to chronologically look through scriptures that reference TRUST. Today my search lands me in the Old Testament books of 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles. Despite temptation to do otherwise because of battles raging (literal ones!) and popular opinion not to trust in the living God but to seek advice and guidance from man-made idols, Hezekiah chose to trust in God. I bet he felt like a thrashing fish too with everyone trying to turn his head this way or that with advice, and trapped in the situations of the days in which he lived.

This is what was said of Hezekiah (for background and a better picture of Hezekiah’s struggle suggested reading would be 2 Kings chapters 18 &19):

2 kings 18:5-7

5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

Do you read what I read? Despite all the cultural persuasion to not choose to follow what God had said was right and best, he held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him.

I hear that! I take it as God reaffirming his instructions to “Cast all your cares on Him” (1 Peter 5:7) and not to worry about anything (Matt 6:25-34) but to bring our anxieties and concerns to him in prayer with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6)

Why do we keep leaning back to the way of the world and let anxiety get the better of us?

Hezekiah was smart enough not to be double minded or lukewarm. He took the only profitable action he knew to do. He prayed!

2 Kings 19:11-16

14 Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.15 And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: “Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16 Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.

If you read the rest of Chapter 19 you will see that God worked miracles, as He tends to do. God took care of the battle for them; without them lifting a finger, there were 185,000 dead Assyrians. Now, I do not need nor want 1 or 185,000 of anyone dead, but I could use some slaying of discord, disease and financial issues. God doesn’t change and it has been said of God when men were fighting battles,

“…He answered their prayers, because they trusted in him.” 1 Chronicles 5:20

I know I cannot solve many of the things I am up against on my own, so I think I will take them to God, the maker of Heaven and Earth, in prayer and stop thrashing about like that frightened fish in a net.

©sdpoole1/2018