Isaiah 38:4-8 – Trusting God for the impossible

God responded to Hezekiah’s sincere prayer immediately. Hardly had Isaiah left the palace ground that the LORD sent him back with words for the king. Hezekiah was told that his prayer was heard. God saw his honest contrition. However, it must be said that the answer to his prayer was simply God’s grace and not due to the merit of what he had done. Whatever the case may be, it is important for us to know that God answers the sincere prayers of His people when they are offered with humility.

Hezekiah did not ask for another fifteen years to live. Neither did he ask for Jerusalem to be protected and delivered from the king of Assyria. Yet God made the promise to lengthen his life by that duration of years and to deliver and protect Jerusalem. From this account, we learn that God always knows what is best to do to prosper us. From God’s response to King Hezekiah, we learn that the answers to our prayers are a demonstration of His grace, and what He would do would often exceed our expectations. It is just as the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 3:20-21, that He will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ever ask or imagine. He knows what is best for our lives, not only for now but also for the future.

Unsolicited, verses 7-8 tell us that God offered King Hezekiah a sign. This sign again was a demonstration of His grace. He wanted him to be fully assured of the certainty of His promise. We all know that God has set an order in how the universe should function. A sign is God intervening in that order to bring about a miracle that would otherwise be impossible. What God did to assure Hezekiah was a scientific impossibility. But with God nothing is impossible. He made the sun to stop rotating in its usual movement and the whole solar system to go in reverse order for a while. This movement then made the shadow of the sun, cast on the step of the stairway that Ahaz had built, to go back ten steps. What God did shows us to what length He would go with His grace to assure us of His love.   

Two things to motivate us to pray. Firstly, be assured that God always hears the sincere prayers of His people. Especially when we make amendments to a wrong and come before Him in contrition. Be assured that His answer to our prayer will often exceed our expectations. Secondly, know that God would go to great lengths to meet the needs of our life if we let Him do it in His way. God will not lead us to where His grace cannot sustain us. Trust Him and be diligent in prayer!