The murky waters of negotiations
There is a story I heard over and over about King Hezekiah in the bible. He was very sick and the prophet Isaiah came to his courts and told the near-to-death ruler that God said: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’
Imagine that, you are sick and you feel really terrible and then the God you believe in says to you – “Hella you are going to die, get ready, get ready, get ready.” *TD Jakes voice*
I have always wondered what I would do if God had to come to me and declare such.
I would be devastated and probably die from devastation.
Other days I have thought I would be so mad, that I renounce my belief in him? Cause if I don’t believe him then I won’t die, yes? “Let it be done to you according to your belief” – that is what Christ said.
But I guess Hezekiah, really believed in his God and went further than what my mind has offered. The bible says he turned his head and earnestly prayed.
Then God brought Isaiah back – probably Is wasn’t chaffed with this back and forth.
He said: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years... Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward... So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.”
The popular teaching here is that we must pray earnestly and prayer changes things.
I further assert that we are negotiators, contrary to popular doctrine. That we can negotiate with God, about our lives.
Yes, he does allow negotiations to happen sans CCMA.
So recently this story was brought back to mind when a friend lost her brother. The idea that God has taken was too much for her to bear, and like the earlier e, lost faith in God and his promises. How was I to encourage her to keep on and keeping on, when all I knew was my own experience of negotiation. You never know how others negotiate. Whether they piss him off so much or that they actually came with a less offer that God did agree to…
The reality, for me, is that we are co-creator with the creator himself when it comes to life and death issues. (I might have missed the mark on this point, but I some how believe that all is not lost because death was pronounced. it is not the end all …
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