Find Relief by Talking to God
The Lord will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the Lord. – Isaiah 38:20
Hezekiah, one of the kings of Israel in Isaiah’s day, was thirty-nine years old when he heard the diagnosis terminal illness. The prophet Isaiah delivered the sad news. “Set your house in order,” he said, “for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Isaiah 38:1). But the king wasn’t ready to die. He wanted more time. So, he pleaded with the Lord. God answered, “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears,” and God graciously gave him fifteen more years.
To encourage him even more, the Lord turned back the sun, ten steps on the dial, to symbolize how he had turned back the clock on the king’s life (Isaiah 38:1–8). When he recovered, Hezekiah wrote a poem (Isaiah 38:9–20). From his poem, you can learn more about how to cry out to God in lament and praise.
Complain to God, not about God
You may honestly voice your thoughts, fears, and disappointments to God. In raw honesty, the Bible records the king’s first response to the bad news. He was in the prime of life: “In the middle of my days I must depart!” He would not see God’s promise to return Israel to their land: “I shall not see the Lord . . . in the land of the living.” He felt like his home was a shepherd’s tent about to be “plucked up and removed.” His life had become a mere weaver’s cloth to be rolled up and carried away. Like a lion, God was breaking the king’s bones. As a result, he moaned like a dove. Like an injured bird, he chirped. But his complaining was directed to the right person: “O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety!” (Isaiah 38:10–14).
Complaining about God, impugning his character, is sin. But Hezekiah shows us that complaining to God about your hurt, expressing the pain of your sorrow, can be an act of faith. It is a God-given means for you to grieve your loss, to walk through your valley with God. So, allow your heart and faith to be refined by suffering.
In bitterness of soul (Hezekiah 38:15), the king interacted with God. This bitterness is not stubborn resentment or rebellion against God, or a refusal to forgive others, of which a true believer in Christ must repent (Ephesians 4:31; Hebrews 12:15). It is bitterness of soul, the inner pain resulting from prolonged, multi-layered suffering which becomes oppressive. It is what Proverbs 14:10 speaks of, “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.” This is what Hezekiah felt.
Look at Your Suffering Through the Lens of God’s Love
However, in time, the king came to realize that his illness was a gift. It was for his spiritual well-being: “Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness” (Isaiah 38:17). His health challenge was from God, given “in love,” in order that he might know more deeply the deliverance of God’s salvation. Infinitely more important than deliverance from death is God’s salvation from sin: “for you have cast all my sins behind your back.” The king needed to recognize this. For this reason, his poem ends with a confession of faith: “The Lord will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the Lord.”
Who are you talking to about your struggles? You may want to read Hezekiah’s story in Isaiah 38 and then reread this meditation.
