2 Chronicles 33.12-13 12 In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled
himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 13 And when he prayed to him,
the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him
back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.
Manasseh was only twelve years old when he became king.
He reigned in Jerusalem 55 years. And he was a jerk for most of those years. He
wasn’t faithful to his God or to his people. So at one point the king of
Assyria capture him, put a hook in his nose, and led him off to exile. Read 2
Chronicles 33…
While he was there, Manasseh had a come-to-Jesus moment.
He genuinely repented of all the crap he’d done, and his heart was changed
toward the Lord. And God forgave him and brought him back home; and God
restored him as king. Despite all he’d done, Manasseh finished well.
If there is one thing to respect about God, it’s this: He knows our heart. God isn’t fooled by our
fox-hole religion: only believing when the crap has hit the fan. God isn’t
fooled by the one who has a ‘change of mind’ but whose heart really isn’t
changed. God knows when we’re trying to clean up our act just to get Him to
change our circumstances, just so we can go back to being the same person we
were before the trouble started.
But God was moved by Manasseh’s pleas. Manasseh had
changed. God, who knows the heart, saw the change and worked on Manasseh’s behalf.
What’s sad is Manasseh’s son, Amon didn’t get it. He decided to pick up where
Manasseh left off before his religious moment. Amon was a fool.
It makes me wonder what people see in me when I’m going
through tough times. Am I humble and repentant, or am I just waiting for the
bombing to stop so I can crawl out of my hole and return to the same kind of
life I had before the bombing started? God knows the heart, and others watch
our living. We can fool some of the people some of the time, but we can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. And we can never fool God.
Difficulties, while difficult, can be beautiful tools in
God’s hands in bringing about change to our living. Manasseh suffered the hook
in his nose, but the painful, ugly hook changed his heart. Are our difficulties
changing us, or are we using them to mask our bitterness and sin? Does God
allow us to go through troubling times to get us to see more clearly?
Personally, I tend to believe so.
God is not mean,
but He is masterful. God’s love may
look and feel like a hook in the nose and shackles on the feet, but His love is
divinely designed to help us make the necessary changes in our lives for the good
of others, and for ourselves. Hooks are painful and ugly, but in the right
hands they bring about everlasting good.
Father God, You
know just what to do and just when to do it because You love us and refuse to
let us sink under the drowning waters of our sin and rebellion. Manasseh
(probably the hard way) learned of Your love and it changes his heart – do what
it takes in me, and may my heart be forever changed. Amen
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