2nd Chronicles 32-33; Luke 11:1-28

In 2nd Chronicles 32 we see king Hezekiah being threatened By the Assyrian king Sennacherib. He was trying to intimidate him saying "on what are you basing your confidence that you remain in Jerusalem under siege? 11 When Hezekiah says, 'The LORD our God will save us from the hand of the king of Assyria,' he is misleading you, to let you die of hunger and thirst. 12 Did not Hezekiah himself remove this god's high places and altars, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before one altar and burn sacrifices on it'?

13 "Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the other lands? Were the gods of those nations ever able to deliver their land from my hand? 14 Who of all the gods of these nations that my fathers destroyed has been able to save his people from me? How then can your god deliver you from my hand? 15 Now do not let Hezekiah deceive you and mislead you like this. Do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your god deliver you from my hand!"

God did deliver king Hezekiah after he summoned the prophet Isaiah and they prayed and trusted God and the LORD sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with the sword.

31 "But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart." Sometimes we will pray and we will not get the answer we want because God knows what choice we are going to make if we do not get our wish. He tests us to teach us about us. One of Hezekiah's sins was pride. When we pray for something and God does not answer knowing what what our response will be we should look deep inside and see if God is testing our faithfulness during this time. Be willing to look and see if pride may be in the way. One way to detect this is if we are only going to be content if our prayer is answered our way. When we get to the point where we can be fine with the answer even if it does not grant our request we are getting closer to servanthood than we were before. God does not serve us, we serve Him.

In Luke 11 Jesus is answering a question on how we should pray. In the Lord's prayer we see praise to God,desire for His Kingdom to come and some manuscripts say for your will to be done. We see petition and request for forgiveness which is tied to our willingness to forgive, and a request not to lead us into evil and some manuscripts ask for deliverance from evil. Many times how we pray and what we ask for reveals where we are with the Lord. Many people in jail only pray for their deliverance. Then after they grow some they pray for their families. Later they can get to the point where the Kingdom is as important as all of that to them. When the Kingdom becomes more important than anything else then we can be used in ways other than before. We do not neglect our families, but God knows when they are more important than Him to us. They are a gift from God and He is to be worshiped as the giver of the gift. When we get the order right, there is order in our family and our spiritual life.