Dueling Doubt

This month I'm participating in Seekerville's Speedbo—a write-as-much-as-you-can-as-fast-as-you-can dealie-majig. Some of us (like me!) have modest goals. Others plan on writing a book in this month of March, and there's every goal in between the two.

My goal: 10k (10,000) words in March, even with taking a week off to visit my parents. It's doable if I can maintain about 500 words a day, and to be honest, that's more my goal than 10k this month. I want to be writing some every day. That habit will carry me further in the long run than blitzing and somehow managing a book in a month (which I know people do all the time, but I never have). It's a writing-muscle exercise that will enable me to grow from there.

Even as I toed the start line yesterday morning I was hemming and hawing. The ol' hissing voice started. “Are you sure you want to set a goal like that? Especially this month with all the other things you have going on. Look at how you did last month: only half way to your goal. Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to set yourself up for another failure?”

I was properly cowed.
Totally.

Until I did my Bible reading that day. Isaiah 37 and King Hezekiah. Check out how the king of Assyria attacked initially.

“Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, “Do not let your God in mwhom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 'Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared? Did the gods of those nations which my fathers have destroyed deliver them, even Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?'” Isaiah 37:10-13

Just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the king of Assyria attacked Hezekiah initially by planting seeds of doubt in him. All those other nations and kings had been destroyed. Did Hezekiah really believe God would deliver them? The other gods hadn't...

Doubt is a tiny seed that grows into a huge, suffocating plant if it's not plucked out and destroyed. The doubt planted in Eve destroyed her but Hezekiah shows us how to battle and defeat doubt.

The Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the Lord. Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying, “O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see... Isaiah 37:14-17

Hezekiah went straight to God. He took those seeds of doubt and poured them all out before God. He just laid it all out there, acknowledging the truth behind what the letter contained (all the other nations really had fallen before the king of Assyria) and acknowledging that God was and is far greater than the most powerful king out there.

And I love this part...
Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. 'Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him... (vs 21 & 22)

Hezekiah's prayer made a difference. Later we see in verse 36 that the angel of the Lord struck 185,000 Assyrians while they slept in their camp. It was enough to send Sennacherib home to Ninevah. Hezekiah's prayer went to God's ear and God took care of the enemy.

Prayer is the best way to duel doubt.

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