31 Days of God-Woven-Moments – October 16

Hezekiah became sick and was near death.  Isaiah told the king to set his house in order.  Hezekiah wept and prayed to God.  God heard his prayers and saw his tears and added fifteen years to his life.   ….

9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

10  I said, In the middle of my days

I must depart;

I am consigned to the gates of Sheol

for the rest of my years.

11  I said, I shall not see the Lord,

the Lord in the land of the living;

I shall look on man no more

among the inhabitants of the world.

12  My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me

like a shepherd’s tent;

like a weaver I have rolled up my life;

he cuts me off from the loom;

from day to night you bring me to an end;

….

Hezekiah envisioned the ending of his life using metaphors to draw word-pictures.  The dwelling is often seen as our bodies, the place where life exists…blood and oxygen keeping us alive.  The shepherd’s tent is picked up with every move as he shepherds his sheep to better grazing.  The life is just taken, picked up.  A weaver cuts his woven work from the loom when it is finished.  Hezekiah saw his life finished, his life’s work done, completed.

….

16  O Lord, by these things men live,

and in all these is the life of my spirit.

Oh restore me to health and make me live!

17  Behold, it was for my welfare

that I had great bitterness;

but in love you have delivered my life

from the pit of destruction,

for you have cast all my sins

behind your back.

18  For Sheol does not thank you;

death does not praise you;

those who go down to the pit do not hope

for your faithfulness.

….

Hezekiah is filled with gratitude for the LORD’s graciousness.  So, too, should we as our lives can be cut off in a heartbeat.

Father, I give thanks for each moment, for each breath.  You do a work in and through me for which I am grateful.  I am nothing without You.  You continue to weave me, making me whole.  As I learn to be useful for Your Kingdom as You so desire of me, I pray that when the time comes that this weaving be removed from the loom, that I shall be ready to go Home.  You are my God.  I want to remain faithful to You until the end of this earthly life, until this tent is plucked up.  I love You, Father.  I thank You for this life.  In Your Son’s Name, I pray.  Amen.  

To catch up on the previous days of this 31 day challenge, you can find them listed here.