We Are to Celebrate Each Day; they are a gift we do not deserve
- How thankful are we for the life we have received?
- How would we live if we learned that our life was to be shortened?
- How would we live each day if we learned how the LORD was extending out life?
King Hezekiah of Israel had just learned the most devastating news: he was terminally ill and was going to die. He was instructed to set his affairs in order, for his time was surely short. What heaviness must it be to learn you have a terminal illness, and what weight it must seem to discover that your days on earth are soon to end. When learning the horrible news, the king did what most of us would surely do when learning we are going to die. He cried tears of sadness, and his despair cried out to the LORD.
“Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying,
(The Second Book of the Kings 20: 2-3 NASB)
“Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.”
And Hezekiah wept bitterly.”
The LORD is fully cognizant of the days of our lives, for the Bible tells us He has numbered them even before giving us the first one. Indeed, the LORD knows exactly how we have spent the days we have been granted and does not need our history lesson reminding Him of the ways we have walked faithfully. However, in his distress, King Hezekiah did exactly that, reminding the LORD of the ways he had lived in faithful obedience. What the king was really saying was: “Why LORD are you ending my life so early? Can’t you see how valuable I am to the world where you have placed me?
While we do not exactly know what disease or illness plagued his body, we are able to see the words of Isaiah, God’s prophet, and the miracle the LORD performed.
“Then Isaiah said, “Take a cake of figs.” And they took and laid it on the boil,
(The Second Book of the Kings 20: 7 NASB)
and he [the king] recovered.”
As I write these words today, the world mourns the loss of cyclists who lost their lives too early, and we wonder, ‘Why LORD, do the young die?’ and ‘Why, LORD, do those we love die before we are ready to let them go?’ and ‘Why, GOD, do those who do evil live when YOUR children die young?’ Truly, these are some of the hardest questions of all. Sometimes the most glorious miracles of God are performed when we are walking in our distress, and the LORD brings His Goodness from our saddest moments of life. We do not understand the work of the LORD, for His ways and thoughts are way above our thoughts and ways. The Bible tells us this truth. We must trust Him, even when we do not fully understand.
We Are to Celebrate Each Day; they are a gift we do not deserve.
We do not know our calendar of time remaining, maybe it will be only a single day (today), maybe it will be many days until a birthday comes, and it may even be another forty-three birthdays (as we hope).
GOD KNOWS.
“The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
(The Psalms 103: 8, 10-11 NASB)
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
. . .
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.”
The LORD never asks us to give what He has not already given to us. Those who are His beloved, who have given their hearts to Him are to walk in His love and live a sacrificial life focused on others. We are to daily strive (with each of our remaining days) to love as Jesus loves us. We are to allow Christ’s love to naturally flow through us onto others, and we celebrate each day (our gifts from above) by living for Him.
Israel’s king knew he had so much good to do in the kingdom, so he pleaded with the LORD for more days, more time, to exact God’s work. He prayed and asked God for total healing and for sign that the LORD would do that which He promised. Hezekiah asked the prophet of God to pray. The LORD performed two miracles that day:
HE healed King Hezekiah of his terminal illness and granted him fifteen additional years,
and
HE moved the sun’s shadow on the stairway backward ten steps.
“So Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to decline ten steps;
(The Second Book of the Kings 20: 10-11 NASB)
no, but let the shadow turn backward ten steps.”
Isaiah the prophet cried to the LORD, and he brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.”
Believers, we are to know our spiritual gifts, and we to use them for the work the LORD has placed before us. Today could be the day of Jesus’ return. We just don’t know. Today could also be the day of our demise, of our death. We just don’t know. Therefore, today is a gift we do not deserve, so let us celebrate it and live it for the LORD.