i am reading about the life of King Hezekiah from wikipedia.. hahahaha. its pretty amazing! it has Biblical references! and for even more information, see the cross-referencing column in your Bible - the middle of each page.

so last week while we were discussing the concept of the will of God, we started on the concept of predestination v. free will. and that went on to how God answers our prayers. and we noted a very very very interesting chronology of events in the Bible.

2 Kings 20 - God tells Hezekiah that he is very sick and he will not recover. Hezekiah is in great distress and prays to God saying,

3 “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4 And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court [zomg see how fast God answers prayer!!!], that the word of the LORD came to him, saying,

5 “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD.

6 And I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for the sake of My servant David.”’”

and so Hezekiah gets 15 more years of life. within that 15 extra years of his life, he has a son named Manasseh, quite possibly one of the worst kings of Judah. followed by Amon, who was also a terrible king. then came the saving grace - King Josiah. the description of Josiah as written in 2 Kings 22:1 is just amazing to me "And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left." (i would love that to be a Biblical summary of my life. haha)

this entire lineage stemmed from the 15 extra years God had given to King Hezekiah. (and here is the most dramatic part) in 1 Kings 13:2

"Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.’”

the birth of King Josiah was prophesied well before God told Hezekiah that he would die of an illness, well before God added 15 years to Hezekiah's life. do you see it????? hahahahaaa. i dont know about you, but this just blew my mind. He knows what we're gonna ask for before we ask it. He hears our prayers before we pray it. perhaps, He doesnt see time the way that we do, just cos He's beyond it. beyond us and our limited understanding. beyond us and our finite thoughts.

what does this mean? you could say that negates our free will cos we dont actually get to choose since God knows everything. you could say there's no need to waste time praying cos God is gonna give what He wants and take what He wants. you could say all of this.. but this entire dichotomy of predestination v. free will is so beautifully summed up in this commentary in the Believer's Bible on Romans 8-9 that is possibly one of the most controversial passages that non-believers find most difficult to come to terms with.

it's extremely long, so i'll try to summarize it the best i can-

the earthly sphere sees man as totally responsible for his actions and faced with the necessity of choosing either to reject or to accept the atonement of Christ. the heavenly perspective in no sense contradicts the earthly, but it does add a new and infinitely more profound dimension. this new dimension declares that God has an elective purpose and that all which ultimately transpires conforms to His purpose, including the salvation of the elect. difficulty arises in man's seemingly unending efforts to reconcile the heavenly insight with the earthly perspective. wrong answers are not infrequently the result of erroneous questions.

ask the question, instead: why is the doctrine of election present in the Scripture?

1. salvation is the gift of God alone
2. the doctrine of God's elective purpose guarantees the perpetuity of salvation
3. if God's heart is set on us in His elective purpose, we may be sure of His concern and providential intervention on our behalf

i can honestly say that i dont have all the answers. i have read up on the two doctrines of predestination - Arminianism and Calvinism, but have found that neither come to a remotely satisfactory conclusion on the issue (but i am definitely more inclined to Calvinism). im not ready to fight evidential or philosophical battles with anyone who has intellectual doubts and questions (haha deflecting responsibility!!!), for i know little (but i'll continue to build up my store of knowledge).

the doctrine of election, i think, is a beautiful one. to know that He knows every moment in my life. every breath i take. every song i sing. every heartache i feel. everything. while i cannot fully understand everything, this simple truth i know - God did not condemn us to hell. we did. of our own accord. allowing perversity and lewdness and greed into our hearts. selfishness, anger, lust invades our spirits. sin permeates every molecule of our being - because we chose it. we condemned ourselves to hell when we made a conscious choice to sin. and by His grace, He has reached in with His Son to pull us out of that train that is on the fast track to the fiery abyss of hell. what we choose is our will. He's calling out, reaching down through all means possible, but we shut Him out.. we shut Him out. and at the end of life's day, who have we to blame? we shut Him out.

1 Timothy 2:4 stands when Paul writes that God "...desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

the foundation of what i believe in is Jesus Christ. His life, His death and His resurrection. the life-changing impact of His presence in my heart and the working of miracles in the lives of others.

today at crosswalk, the kids were each given a piece of paper along with some color pencils and crayons to draw something that reminded them of God. michael yager drew a rainbow of 5 colors (along with his pone (phone) number and handed it to me so i could "call him" if i wanted to hahahah). haha it was so sweet it made me laugh. but when i looked at it, i was reminded how much of a child i am in God's eyes. i dont know much about the real glory of Heaven, but with what i do know, i try to paint a picture of and show to everyone i know. and He delights in that drawing, though it might only be a little scribbling of the big picture.



then one day He shows me the real deal.. (i saw this FULL RAINBOW yesterday)



but no matter what paints i use, what colors i attempt to blend to reproduce that same beauty of what He intended a rainbow to be, i never can. even a photograph of it could never do it justice. and its okay if i cant express what i know in my heart well enough to "convince" others of this truth that i know. that's not a job for me, for the Holy Spirit brings you to that place where you will see with your own eyes the rainbow of His salvation. i can only paint a picture of what i know.. take some photos. but you have to see it for yourself, for it is only when you see it with your own eyes. when you see everything that He is, that you'll know.

and if you havent seen this rainbow, i hope you do, soon. (: