Have you ever felt God has withdrawn from you? Maybe He has.
There’s a
small verse almost hidden in 2nd Chronicles 32:31 that packs a powerful
punch for those who feel abandoned by God.
“God withdrew from him (Hezekiah), in order to test him,
that He might know all that was in his heart.”
God had blessed Hezekiah, perhaps as much as all kings except for David and Solomon.
God had turned back Hezekiah’s enemy, the king of Assyria, despite his deliciously wicked taunts against Hezekiah and the bewildering triumphs over other countries, including Judah’s rebellious rival, the nation of Israel.
God proved the healing of Hezekiah from a near fatal sickness by using a holy time machine, turning the sun’s relentlessly advancing shadow backward by
ten steps, a feat never to be repeated even to this day (2nd Kings
20: 1-11, 2nd Chronicles 32:24).
God does all these things, and then God tests Hezekiah? Near the end of his life? I
mean, come on, now! God abandoned and left desolated the good and great King Hezekiah of Judah?
Why?
Why is it that we can feel so close to God, and then suffer
the “Elijah depression”, as seen in 1st Kings 19:9-18?
Could it be that we have come to take God for granted, or
even worse, think that somehow His blessings are the results of how good we
are, rather than how good He is?
“Hezekiah did not repay (God) according to the favor shown
him, for his heart was lifted up… Hezekiah had very great riches and honor. And
he made himself treasuries … storehouses … and stalls. Moreover, he provided
cities for himself, and possessions… Hezekiah prospered in all his works.”
God left him to test him, but NOT to show God what was in the
king’s heart.
God left him to test him to show HEZEKIAH himself that even though
the king was passing the grades of the day, he was actually failing the test of
eternity.
O, America! O, American churches!! O, American pastors, and all we with our treasures
laid up for ourselves, do we not see that we are not rich toward God? Of course
God has left us, to TEST us.
“But I’m not prosperous,” you say?
It wasn’t the prosperity that caused God’s test. It was
the pride.
God doesn’t give a reservoir of water for your possessions,
but when pride drowns everything else out of your heart to the level that there
is no room for God, then, yes, He’ll leave you. Alone. By yourself. In an ocean
of “possessions” that only possess you.
To test you.
Tell me now, just how long has it taken you to notice that God
has left?
Your trinkets may not be of silver or gold, but they
glittered and darted in your heart. O, but didn’t they TWINKLE in your eyes? Those
itty bitty things suddenly pushed out the God of the universe! Those things
you loved the most caused the One Who loves you most, to leave you to the uttermost.
“Psst. Hey!”
“What?” you answer.
“Shh. Shh. Do you want a cheat sheet for the test you’ve
been failing?”
“Yeah! Sure!” you say. “What’s the answer to Number 1?”
“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
C.J. Mahaney said in his book Humility: True Greatness, “Pride
is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse
to acknowledge their dependence upon Him.”
“Psst. Hey. Want another cheat sheet?”
“Yeah,” you whisper back, “What’s the answer to number 2?”
“He has shown you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Your God."
Andrew Murray’s “cheat sheet” found in his book Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness has an answer to passing God’s test of being left all alone.
“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in
you. The only humility that is REALLY ours is not that which we try to show
before God… but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary
conduct.”
“The insignificances of daily life are the importances and
the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that
possesses us.”
Keep reading that last sentence over and over ...
... until …
“Ah, Father! Welcome Back! I’ve been missing You!”
