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When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray. 
                                    2 Kings 17:1 (NLT)

I love this verse. It is a constant reminder that when things fall apart, the best thing for me to do is humble myself and pray. King Hezekiah had received a report that he was about to be attacked by the Assyrian army – an army that was kicking butt across the region. Israel was next on the list. How could the small nation stand against such an army?

The king of Assyria tried to weakened the Israelites before actually engaging them in battle. He sent messengers before him who:

• Taunted King Hezekiah and the Israelites. He basically said “If you can find 2,000 horsemen in your army, I’ll give you 2,000 Egyptian horses for them to ride and then I’ll still beat you!”
• Challenged their faith by saying “Do you think we’ve invaded your land without the Lord’s direction? The Lord Himself told us ‘Go and destroy it!’”
• Destroyed their confidence in their king and God saying directly to the people “Don’t let the king fool you. He’ll never be able to save you from my power. None of the other countries were able to stand against me.”

King Hezekiah heard all this and went into the temple of the Lord to pray.

Lord, make me more like Hezekiah – I want to act with a calm faith in the face of what looks like sure disaster.

In our economy today, many people are listening to the kings of Assyria in their lives. They are hearing and believing that they will come to ruin unless they surrender now. The enemy is whispering in their ears “Who do you think you are that God would deliver you? Don’t you know that I’ve been sent by God to humble you - to punish you or to teach you a lesson? I could give you free housing/car/health insurance (choose your most pressing financial issue) and I’d still drown you in debt before the end of the year. Why will your God deliver you?”

The answer is He will deliver us because He is our deliverer. He will deliver us because we belong to Him. Husbands don’t let their wives be taken captive. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom of the Church – He is our husband.

But let’s respond correctly. Let’s choose to believe our God instead of foreign kings and let’s humble ourselves and pray.

I’m not making economic predictions. I have no idea if the economy will turn around in January or March or March of 2020. But I know that my deliverance comes from the Lord and is not dependent on the economy. My deliverance is not dependent on my own ability to work hard or to make money, it’s not dependent on being at the right place at the right time, and it’s not dependent on the amount of faith I have. It is dependent on God’s mercy and grace and His mighty power.

Where do you choose to place your trust – in the economy or in God’s mercy and power? Who do you choose to believe – enemy kings or the King of Kings?

How you approach 2009 depends on where your trust lies. If your trust is in God’s mercy and power, you can face the new year with confidence, not despair.  Place your trust in the King of Kings. He is the faithful provider, not dependent upon the whims of the economy. Strengthen that trust by visiting with Him regularly in prayer and by reading in the Bible about His nature and His history of faithfulness.

As an aside, let me give you something to think about. I’m going to be providing a plan for read through the Bible in 2009 along with weekly encouragements and blogs that correspond to the readings. Don’t be intimidated by it! You can read throught the Bible by reading about 3.2 chapters each day. For now, just be open to the idea. You’ll learn more about the plan in a day or two.

As I was writing this blog, a favorite verse came to mind:

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

I wasn’t sure of the wording or the reference, so I looked it up. I found it in the middle of this wonderful prayer that seems a perfect ending to this blog. It is my prayer for you as we look toward 2009.

¹    May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
     may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
²    May he send you help from the sanctuary
     and grant you support from Zion.
³    May he remember all your sacrifices
     and accept your burnt offerings.
                       Selah

⁴    May he give you the desire of your heart
     and make all your plans succeed.
⁵    We will shout for joy when you are victorious
     and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
     May the LORD grant all your requests.
⁶    Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
     he answers him from his holy heaven
     with the saving power of his right hand.
⁷    Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
     but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
⁸    They are brought to their knees and fall,
     but we rise up and stand firm.
⁹    O LORD, save the king!
     Answer us when we call!
            Psalm 20 (NIV)

As I am doing devotions today, I am aware that I need to call a customer imminently. He called yesterday afternoon when I was out and I feel pressured to call him back immediately this morning.

Wanting to focus on devotions and NOT on the work that must begin soon, I prayed “Lord, free me from the expectations of others.” My immediate thought was…I need to be freed from the expectations I put on myself first. In reality, it’s unlikely that the customer I need to call in a few minutes is really sitting by his phone waiting for the business day to start and watching to see if I call him at the stroke of 8am. (Well, 8:15 really, because I consider it a little rude to call before someone has time to get their work-head together, which I figure takes the first 15 minutes of the day!)

In the strive for excellence…notice I said excellence, not perfection – perfection is not attainable, only God is perfect; excellence is attainable – it doesn’t mean without error, rather with minimal error and a plan for correcting and making recompense for those errors. In the strive for excellence, I can often put more pressure on myself than others do. Perhaps you are like me. How do you deal with it?

 I find that I must continually do several things:

1) Evaluate the source of my striving for excellence. If it comes from a desire to impress or please other people, my focus is probably wrong. My job (both at my place of employment and in my personal life) is to please the Lord. Sometimes that means NOT pleasing other people. If I find that I have been operating from wrong motivations, I must turn to God in repentance, asking Him to forgive me for caring more about what people think than what He thinks.

2) Remind myself that God is in control of my business, not me. Sometimes I fall into the trap of believing that I’m responsible for the success of my business. The truth is that I do lots of the work, but God is the source of my ability to get work, my ability to accomplish it, and the favor shown to me by my customers. Again, repentance is often required here when I realize that I have again fallen for the enemy’s trap.

3) Consider my life and whether it is in balance (or at least some semblence of balance). I know that when my life is in balance, there will always be work that doesn’t get done. There will always be one more request that a customer makes or one more accounting task to complete before it’s time to say “I’ve worked enough today. Now it’s time for family.” If that customer call came in because I was pursuing other things the Lord has called me to, sometimes the most appropriate thing to do is thank God for the life He’s given me, ask for grace with the customer and call him back at the earliest opportunity.

That’s my remedy for dealing with the pressure I put on myself. If you have other suggestions, let me know. We can all learn from each other. As for me, I gotta go call my customer!

If left to my own devices, I’m a late sleeper. Even when I go to bed early, I can sleep late. I am also a heavy sleeper. I frequently don’t hear the alarm clock no matter how loud it’s set. And since every other day of the week I have a reason for being up early, I have always treasured Saturday morning as the day I get to sleep a little later. Not as late as I’d like, mind you, but until a respectable 9am or so.

About a year ago, God began to wake me up early on Saturday mornings. I admit it…for quite a long time, I resented this. Saturday morning is my only morning to sleep late, I like to sleep late, I’m still tired, but I’m lying here in bed awake. What’s with that? No matter how late I go to bed on Friday night, I’m awake early on Saturday morning. If I don’t get out of bed, I just lay there staring into space. I rarely fall back asleep.

Eventually I remembered that when things aren’t as they normally are, when things seem out of place, always look for the hand of God. Since I had spent my life sleeping in on Saturday mornings and now that seemed an impossibility, I realized that it was God who was waking me up.

And Saturday  mornings have become such a special time with God. I don’t do anything significantly differently from what I do most mornings, but on Saturdays (because I’m awake and getting an earlier start), there is less pressure from the things that have to be done later in the day. The house is quieter, the spirit more peaceful. God seems more accessible.

Now the truth is there’s nothing different about the house on Saturdays than on Wednesdays or Fridays and God isn’t any more accessible on Saturday than He is on Wednesdays or Fridays. The truth is that I’m different. I’m more relaxed and looking forward to hearing from God on these early Saturday mornings than on other days. Because I’m up earlier than I need to be, I can enjoy Him without other distractions. And our time together is longer than other days of the week. I worship Him longer, I read more, I listen more, I write more.

The very cool thing is that this was all God’s idea. He initiated it. I’m so thankful that we serve a God who initiates a relationship with us. As A.W. Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, God is always previous. He always reaches out to us first. He goes before us in everything we do, arriving where we are before we get there. He is always previous.

So God and I have an appointment that He helps me to keep every Saturday morning. Actually, we have an appointment every morning, but Saturday’s appointment is more like a date.

I bet God would like to have a date with you, too. I’m praying that He would begin to awaken readers of this blog early one day next week. Just so you and He can spend more time together.

Let me know how it goes.