Isaiah 39:5-8 -- On Consequences, Acceptance, and Endurance

"Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts:
Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.
And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days."
Isaiah 39:5-8


Hezekiah had been sick, and pleaded with the Lord for more time, and his life was extended by 15 years, so maybe he is still high on life at this point... happy to be alive, happy that things would be okay while he was still king, and perhaps truly faithful, accepting of what the Lord had in store and not wanting to press his luck pleading for another intervention. After all, he had just shown the son of the King of Babylon every treasure he owned. It does strike me as a little out of character for him though, since he went to the Lord so many times in the past to try to change something that seemed inevitable. On the other hand, God had saved the kingdom in the past, and at least his sons would be alive, so maybe it was better than several alternatives he could think of, and maybe the Sprit was telling him that God wasn't going to step in on this one.

The thing is, he couldn't change it alone. He couldn't go back and undo what he had done, and I feel like we all have times in our lives that are this way. We can't undo them, we know that the consequences of our actions aren't always things that we can change, or run from. God isn't always going to intervene. Some things are baked into the pattern, or "fixed moments in time" as Doctor Who likes to say. :) ... It isn't always going to be ideal or fun, or less than heartwrenching, but sometimes we have to accept it, and move forward anyway. Hezekiah did. We can't see it in this verse, but I doubt that it was easy for him, but God was asking him to live with it, and he tried to find the positive. In our lives, I'm not saying that we shouldn't plead with the Lord to help us out of the jams that we get ourselves into... just that when we know it is something we have to face, we should as Hezekiah, and also Christ, did, and accept the Lord's will ahead of our own. Sometimes he will save us even then, as he did Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his son. But sometimes he won't, as in this case with Hezekiah, and as with Christ. Sometimes things have to be lived through. Today, let's plead for help as much as we can get, and live with the rest, knowing that God will strengthen and help us with things that we need to endure, and that even the hardest things will fade to nothing in comparison with the joys of eternity.