II Kings 19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD
Who knows you best? It might be your mom or a spouse. It might be a nosy neighbor. Someone has said that your iPhone knows you better than your mom does, and that very well may be the case. So often we ask people, “How are you doing?” and that is as far as we get. We don’t really know how they are doing no matter what it is they say, yet there is someone who knows you well. In fact, He knows you better than you know yourself, and that is worth knowing when you have needs that are greater than you.
We find a good piece of advice in II Kings 19 where King Hezekiah’s back was literally against the wall. He was under siege by the Assyrians who had tasted the waters of many a conquered city, and they had sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah. II Kings 19:14 says, “And Hezekieh received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.” I love this! He spread it before the Lord; he revealed it to God. You may or may not do this, but God knows you to your core. Instead of bottling up all of your worries, problems, and issues inside yourself, how wise it is to spread your needs before the Lord!
How does one do that effectively? How do we spread things before the Lord and present our needs to God as we should? When I read this, the first thing that popped into my head was the importance of a clean heart. II Kings 18:1 says that Hezekiah did that which was right. He removed the high places; he got rid of the places of idolatry. Verse 5 says, “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.” He was a man who trusted God. He had a clean heart.
You can’t afford to be cut off from the God who can answer your questions and meet your needs. How many times we could have fellowship with God and answered prayers, yet we are cut off from Him because of sin in our heart. Sometimes these sins are things we don’t even think about, maybe bitterness, envy, malice. How do we spread things before the Lord in such a way that God hears our prayer? We need a clean heart.
Second, we need an accurate or honest assessment. I love verse 17. Hezekiah says to the Lord, “Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands.” This was not just trash talk from the king of Assyria. Everyone he had encountered he had defeated. Verse 18 says, “And have cast their gods into the fire: because they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.” God makes us, but we make idols.
I love that when Hezekiah came to the Lord, he had an accurate and honest assessment. He said, “All that they are saying is true, Lord.” He didn’t bury his head in the sand. He didn’t wring his hands. He rolled up his sleeves and asked God to help. He spread it before the Lord with a clean heart and an honest assessment.
Third, he had an accurate assessment of who God is. Verse 15 says, “And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.” God is the Creator and Sovereign. He is a God worthy of our worship and up to our needs. He is able to answer those who come to Him.
So, who knows you best? The answer is God does. Then, the real question is, “What are you doing?” Are you bottling up all these issues, problems, and frustrations in your own heart? Are you complaining? Are you gossiping? Or are you spreading these things before the Lord? A wise person knows he needs help and spreads his needs before the Lord in prayer.