Isaiah 36-39

Have you ever felt like there are days your spiritual walk with God is bouncing all over the place? You might know the feeling. You get up in the morning read your Bible and talk with God excited for what He has planned for your day. Then the kids or your spouse get on your nerves or the traffic on the way to work frustrates you. You get out of your car and go into your place of employment and tell God, “let’s try this again”. You feel spiritually refreshed only to hear a negative attitude from a co-worker or a rage of anger from your boss. All of a sudden you’re angry too and yelling at people or tired of the day already and it is only 9am. As the day goes you bounce from a holy action to a sinful action. Then finally after a long day of dealing with sin and brokenness in yourself and the world you get home to find the kids have made a mess of themselves and the house and your spouse is in a bad mood also. Your spouse is just as frustrated as you about dealing with sin, or the neighbors, or the kids’ lack of obedience. Then after you finally struggle through the evening, you get the kids into bed and grab a good “holy” book, like Max Lucado and read before you fall asleep yourself. As you drift off into a deep maybe even peaceful sleep you tell God and maybe your spouse to, “I will try harder tomorrow and will get this thing called the Christian life right”. Have you ever had days like that? Are there periods in your life when you seem to bounce back and forth between worship to God and sinful disgustingness? This is what we see from Hezekiah today in the reading. He is walking with God but deals with the brokenness of the sinful king of Assyria, the sickness of his own body, and his own sinful flesh. But mixed in with the curse is Hezekiah and his walk and trust and closeness with God. So what is the #1 factor in the life of Hezekiah that keeps him most times in the straight and narrow? What does Hezekiah do when the sin and curse come glaring into his face? How can Hezekiah show us a better way to live our lives in days like I just described above? The simple answer yet the answer we do not turn to very much is PRAYER. What does your prayer life show about you? When was the last time a co-worker saw you pray and talk with God? When was the last time your kids saw you pray with your spouse? When was the last time you prayed with your kids other than the dinner table? How much do you pray and rely only on God to run your life? Prayer is the simple yet profound and still rarely used solution to life in this broken sinful fallen world. What does your communication with God show about your heart?