A few verses later, and I am still highlighting Hezekiah.
Clearly something in his story was speaking to me, because I marked up most of his chapters.
This one is interesting in a way I am still working out.
The setup is wild. Ambassadors come from Babylon. All the way to Jerusalem. To ask about the remarkable events that had taken place in the land.
The world was watching.
Hezekiah's healing had been remarkable. The sign of the shadow going backwards on the sundial had been remarkable. The defeat of the Assyrian army had been remarkable. And word had traveled. The reputation of what God had done in Judah had reached all the way to Babylon. Important people from far away were showing up at his door wanting to know more.
That alone is something.
But then the verse takes a turn.
God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart.
That felt strange to me.
God withdrew from him. On purpose. To test him.
When I first read it, I thought it meant God removed Hezekiah from the situation. Like, He pulled him out of the spotlight, away from the brag, away from the accolades. But it does not say that. It says God withdrew from Hezekiah. God stepped back. God let Hezekiah handle this moment on his own.
And the test was to see what was really in Hezekiah's heart.
That sounds unsettling, but I could somewhat relate.
Because sometimes God lets us walk through something without the strong sense of His leading just to see who we are when no one is holding our hand.
How do we handle attention?
How do we handle compliments?
How do we handle the moment when the world is watching and we have the platform and the credit is sitting right there for the taking?
If you read the parallel account in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39, you find out what actually happened in that visit. Hezekiah did not pass the test. He showed the Babylonian visitors all his treasures. He paraded them around. He soaked in the moment. He took the accolades. And Isaiah came to him afterwards and prophesied that everything he had just shown off would one day be carried off to Babylon.
The same pride from the verses before. Showing up here too.
It is sobering.
Sometimes the test is not in the storm. Sometimes the test is in the spotlight.
We can handle hardship with faith and still completely blow the moment when things are going well. We can pray hard when we are sick and turn around and forget God when we are famous. We can be the same person who clings to Him in the dark and posts ourselves all over the place in the light.
That makes me want to be really careful with my good moments.
When God blesses something. When people start to notice. When the door opens. When the platform grows. When the compliments come. When the world starts watching. That is when my heart needs to be the most checked, not the least.
Because God might be quiet on purpose in those moments. Not because He has left. But because He is waiting to see what comes out.
And what comes out tells us what was really in there all along.