Hearth & Altar

Hezekiah took the letter and spread it out before the Lord. That act is the whole of the prayer: he did not compose an elaborate argument, did not strategize a response, did not try to manage the crisis through his own political wisdom. He brought the threat into the house of God and laid it on the floor before the Lord who sees everything.

O Lord, incline your ear and listen. Open your eyes and see. The request is not for power - it is for attention. Look at this. Hear this. The prayer trusts that the Lord's attention to the situation is itself the beginning of the answer.

Save us so that all kingdoms of earth may know that you alone are God. The purpose of the prayer is not Judah's survival for its own sake. It is the testimony - the making-known of who the Lord is to the kingdoms that do not yet know him. The deliverance of Jerusalem is an act of proclamation.

Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and prophets - the whole ethical structure compressed into the reciprocal. The narrow gate is narrow not because it is difficult to find but because it requires the whole person: the self-examination of the beam-removal, the honesty of the pearls-not-before-swine discernment, the golden rule applied from the inside.

• For our family, that we would spread our specific threats and fears before the Lord - bringing the letter into the house of God and asking for attention rather than trying to manage the crisis ourselves, we pray to the Lord.
• For those facing the Sennacherib-letter situation - the taunt that says your God cannot save you - that the prayer of Hezekiah would be theirs, we pray to the Lord.
• For those on the narrow road who are finding it, that the few who find it would encourage each other in the finding, we pray to the Lord.
• In this Sacred Heart month, for the heart that hears the prayer of Hezekiah and sends the 185,000-answer, we pray to the Lord.

Spread the letter before the Lord. Name the specific threat or taunt you are facing this week - the Sennacherib-letter in your life. Take it physically to prayer: write it down, bring it to your prayer space, lay it before the Lord and ask him to incline his ear and look at it. The act of bringing is itself the prayer.

Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. The golden rule is not a rule imposed from outside - it is the application of the inside to the outside. What would you want if you were in that situation? Teach your children this consistently, and the ethics follows from the empathy. What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of what you are doing?