• Not Going To Sleepwalk Through Life

    By: Kristen L. McNulty

    Reprint rights available on request. Email the author at kristenmcnulty@hotmail.com.

    A few weeks back we talked about the story of Hezekiah and how it relates to prayer, but I haven't been able to get his story off of my mind since.

    Here's a guy who is told he's going to die, then pleads with God to give him more time. God does and extraordinarily tells Hezekiah exactly how much extra time he's been given: 15 years.

    Now up until that point, Hezekiah has been working hard at leading the nation of Israel back to God. In fact we're told in the Bible that Hezekiah was a man who did "what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God" (2 Chronicles 31:20).

    And you'd think after being given 15 more years and knowing the little time he had left, he'd work harder at it than ever. But that's not the case.

    He let pride sink in and showed off Israel's wealth to the Babylonians, leading to them eventually taking Israel into captivity. When confronted by the prophet Isaiah about the consequences of his pride, that all of those treasures will be ransacked, his sons will be taken and forced to live in exile in Babylon, Hezekiah shows a lot of indifference and not a lot of remorse when he says:

    “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” (2 Kings 20:19)

    Hezekiah started strong but ended weak. Will the same be said of you and I?

    Sometimes in the excitement of meeting Christ we start our Christian journey filled with zeal, but then along the way let complacency creep in and lose the drive to complete the mission that God has given to us.

    My question for you and I is: We already spend a third of our lives sleeping, do you really want to sleepwalk through the rest?

    We've all got an expiration date stamped on our lives. And not one of us knows what that date is. We can't afford to waste a moment, a day, a week, a season. Because we truly don't know how many more of those moments, days, weeks and seasons we have left. Make it matter, diving headfirst into your God-given mission here on this earth. Pouring everything you have into it so that one day, when your standing at the entrance of eternity you won't have to look back and see a long string of regrets.

    When the feelings of complacency creep in, fight them off and remember Hezekiah. The one redeeming factor of how is life ended is what we can learn from it. I don't know about you but I don't want to let the fire wither and burn out. I want to work just as hard as I did for Christ on my last day that I did on my first day. I want to finish well.

    Closing with Hebrews 12:1-4:

    "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won't become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin." Hebrews 12:1-4

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