  King Hezekiah's story is found in II Kings 18-20 and II Chronicles 29-32. As I indicated in my previous post, I have lots of thoughts on King Hezekiah. I think that I'll work through them one by one for this and the next couple of posts so as to allow myself to process. Last week our church arranged for the movie, urlLink _Luther_ to be shown at the Hoffman Center ... two showings, tickets only available through our church. It's a great movie, and I plan to purchase it if it ever comes out on DVD. One of the things that it left me thinking about was the idea of God choosing each of us to do different things within the body.
Here was Martin Luther, essentially the father of all Protestant based theology (I might be off there ... I'm not very knowledgeable on church history) ... he was a simple monk, who was having arguments with the devil and seemed almost obsessively driven to seek church reform. And, as a result, many have come to know Christ today as a result of his ministry. Then there are these four kings in the Old Testament. It's important for me to remind myself that these are not merely four guys who independently ended up as kings. They were great-grandfather, grandfather, father and son.
And, if you look at the ages, you will see that both grandfathers were around to see their grandsons born. What I'm thinking here is this: Uzziah saw the birth of his grandson Ahaz. Uzziah died when Ahaz was four years old. Had Ahaz already started to show evil tendencies by the age of four? Did Uzziah mourn the lack of godliness that his son showed? Jotham died when his grandson, Hezekiah, was nine years old.
Was Hezekiah already following the Lord by that age? Even though his father, Ahaz, was an evil man? If you look farther into the math, Ahaz was 11 or 12 years old when Hezekiah was born. All of these family connections make the stories more intriguing. Now, getting back to callings and such ... I keep thinking about the fact that king #1 does good, his son king #2 does good, his son king #3 does very bad, and his son king #4 does very, very good.
These four men's lives overlapped. Yet one of them turned out to be incredibly evil and did not at all follow the Lord. And one of them turned out to be very much a man after God's heart, as was King David. How does it happen that God uses one man for very, very good and another man for evil? In fact, how did Ahaz turn out so evil when his father was such a good man? And how did Hezekiah turn out so wonderfully good when his father was so very evil?
And then there's me. Why did God choose me for His kingdom? I know ... He chose to love Israel not because they were large in number (Deuteronomy 7:7) but because He loved them. Really what He was saying was that He loved them because He loved them. Because He wanted to.
Why did God choose to love me. Not because I'm bigger or stronger or better or more virtuous or more pure than anyone else ... in fact I'm none of those things. Yet He chose to love me because He loved me. Now, I'm not one to look a proverbial gift horse in the mouth. My frustration with this idea is for the people who God didn't chose. I know ...
I know ... the question of the ages. Free will vs. selection. Works vs. grace. Maybe no human being has ever really had a good handle on answering that question. Doesn't mean that I still don't feel a little bit of "survivor's guilt" because I'm on this side of the line. But when I get myself really mired in this question, I go even farther.
Why did Martin Luther become so important to Christianity that he was tortured by evil spirits? Why was he the one that God used to begin Protestantism? Not that I'm jealous ... please know that I don't want to be kept up at night arguing with the devil!! But there are some God uses one way and some He uses another. And why me ... or why not me? Again ... asked and answered in I Corinthians 12:14ff.
God uses each member of the body differently. If the foot decided to be a hand... if the the whole body would be a hand, how would we walk. So ... I'll let Martin Luther be tortured by the devil ... and I'll let King Ahaz alone with his evil, God-denying reign ... and I'll let Hezekiah keep the credit for ridding Israel of idol worship and turning them back to the One, True God. I don't know if I'm a foot or a hand or an eye or an ear or a mouth (probably the latter, LOL! ), but I need to walk through every day allowing the Lord to use me as He will ... and be content in Him. 
