Imagine opening up your email and seeing a mean, nasty, threatening email. At first, you think it was meant for someone else. But no. The menacing words are directed at you, and you feel your soul being pierced.
As you read the words over and over again, your body responds. You feel both anger and shame as you try to make sense of it.
How do you respond? Do you...
A. Take advantage of that adrenaline coursing through your body and fire back an equally mean and nasty reply.
B. Crawl up into a ball as shame and fear overtake you.
I'd probably be tempted to do both, one after the other!
King Hezekiah of Judah found himself in this predicament. Okay, okay, so he didn't receive an email. But he did receive a threatening message from King Sennacherib from Assyria. King Sennacherib's army had flattened other nations and made a joke out of their gods. Now he was coming after Judah.
Here are some of King Sennacherib's fighting words, sent through a messenger:
"This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria. You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different?" (Isaiah 37:10-11, NLT)
He sounds like a real gem of a guy, huh?
So what does Hezekiah do when he receives this message? Does he flex his muscle and raise the temperature on an already tense situation? Or does he hide under the royal bed?
Neither.
King Hezekiah does something astounding. He does something I rarely think of doing when my back is against the wall.
King Hezekiah prints out the mean email and hands it directly to God!
After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord's Temple and spread it out before the Lord. (Isaiah 37:14, NLT)
I love Hezekiah's response. He doesn't attempt to deal with the situation himself. And here's the thing—he easily could have tried. He was king. He could have ordered his army to make an immediate attack on Assyria. (Fight!) Or he could have surrendered and allowed Sennacherib to overtake Judah. (Flight!)
But Hezekiah doesn't do either of these things. Instead, he lays the problem before God and asks for help.
When I am put in a threatening situation, I hardly ever think to bring it to God first. Instead, my mind starts running through possible solutions. I go into fight-or-flight mode and try to deal with it on my own.
But what if I took a deep breath and printed out the email instead? Shaking my head, I hand it over to God, thinking, Well, I don't know how he's going to want me to deal with this one, but we'll see. (Of course, then I need to be ready to do whatever he asks of me and leave the outcome to him.) For Hezekiah, it turned out well. God rescued Judah from King Sennacherib that day. But that outcome wasn't guaranteed.
I recently heard a sermon by Andy Stanley about Daniel and the lions. He pointed out that we love to jump to the end of the story—God rescuing Daniel from the mouths of the ravenous lions. But the real "hinge point" of that story is Daniel making the decision to follow God. God never promised Daniel a safe and happy ending, even though that's what he got. Daniel simply printed out the email and gave it to God, took the next step, and left the outcome to him. King Hezekiah did the same thing.
After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it, he went up to the Lord's Temple and spread it out before the Lord.
There is something that makes me smile about that image. A king with the humility to know he didn't have it all figured out. A man who had unlimited power, but also enough restraint to not give in to his first knee-jerk reaction.
The next time I feel attacked or humiliated or afraid, I hope I take a lesson from Hezekiah. Rather than try to solve the problem myself (and probably make the situation worse), I want to remember to take a deep breath and hand the problem over to God.
What "email" (AKA, any situation making you feel attacked, agitated, or threatened... and it could very well be an actual email!) do you need to print out and hand to God?
—
P.S. Did you know you can buy me a coffee to keep me caffeinated and writing? (But I'll probably use it to buy sweet tea instead!)