Faithful Friday Faves: Isaiah

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Isaiah is a pretty amazing book; prophecy and oracle and just about in the middle, a narrative. Skimming through it, promise after promise spoke to me about God's heart to bless His people.

But the verse that jumped up and said 'Pay attention!' is in the narrative of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem:

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word the LORD has spoken against him:.... -Is. 38:21-22a

And the text goes on to answer Sennacherib's taunts against God and promise deliverance to the people of Judah.

What got my attention, though, was God's declaration of why He was moved to answer...Because Hezekiah prayed. Not because He was defending His Name, not because Sennacherib had crossed a line...but because Hezekiah prayed.

That probably caught my eye because one of the books I'm reading during my (ahem) down time is Beth Moore's Breaking Free, and I'd just gotten totally convicted by her chapter on prayerlessness.

Oh, I pray, but as I've probably said before, I've let myself get so busy that my prayer life is more like living on pick-up from the drive through than living on solid food. I need to pull all the issues in my life together and seriously lay them before the Lord.

And I need to make that my lifestyle.

Because it's not about praying eloquent prayers, it's not about praying anointed prayers, it's not about praying with Holy Ghost goose-bumps...it's just about praying.

And I needed to be reminded.