"Then Isaiah said, 'This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?' And Hezekiah answered, 'It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees'" (2Kings 20:19,20).
I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME! Time isn't supposed to be messed with. Standard time is time as God intended it to be.
I think Judah's King Hezekiah would agree...
Hezekiah was told he would be healed of a terminal disease and would be given fifteen additional years of life, but, weak in faith, he insisted on a sign. The prophet Isaiah first proposed that the shadow on his sun dial move forward as a sign, but Hezekiah insisted that the shadow move backward.
Right, I thought. Fall back: an extra hour to sleep, or in Hezekiah's case, extra years to live.
Unfortunately, Hezekiah squandered his bonus years: He showed Israel’s treasures to a Babylonian probe, a vanity that led to her captivity 140 years later. Furthermore, he fathered a son, Manasseh, a terrible man, who took Judah over a cliff and into ruin. Hezekiah's epitaph could have read: "Here lies a man who lived too long."
Sometimes I wonder: Will I too ”end before I finish, or finish and not finish well” and know…
The darkness of a spirit
grown mean and small,
fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few
who love me still…
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,
A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end. —Robertson McQuilkin, “Home Before Dark"
It all depends on Him.
David Roper
11.7.20
