Bible Search

I absolutely love making use of the tools available to me to find passages that come to mind with a couple key words and a couple clicks.  It is such a blessing that we have so much technology available to us to aid us in our Bible studies.  At the same time, sometimes (at least for me) it can hinder what we get out of the Word.  If I didn't know where a verse was before we had internet and before I had my Franklin electronic Bible, I pretty much had to read around where I thought it was until I found it.  It was a lot more work, but there were lots of rewards to it as well!  I had mentioned a particular Bible story to one of the men at church on Sunday in relation to Sunday school and I thought for sure it was in Nehemiah.  Rather than searching for it, I decided to read Nehemiah and try to find it.  I was so blessed and encouraged by it.  Now, I didn't find the passage that I was looking for, but God used it in my heart and I am thankful. 

I did give in and decided to search for it... it was actually in 2 Kings 19:14-19.

Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God.”

This was Hezekiah's response to a letter basically saying look at all these other kings that have been defeated... what makes you any different?

What a great response!  So often our first response to hard situations is to try to come up with some kind of solution.  Why do we not first take all to the Lord in earnest prayer?  We lose out on opportunities to bring glory to the Lord by trying to solve it ourselves, though even if we did "solve it ourselves", it is only because of wisdom we have received from the Lord.  We would do well to recognize that from the beginning and save ourselves the time and pain involved in the sin of "worry".  May we always be taking all things to Him in earnest prayer and may He receive greater glory because of it!