2 Kings 20:2-3 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, “Remember, LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Hezekiah is sick and dying. Imagine being able to come to the end of your life and say confidently, “I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion.” I want to live like that!
The Message version gives us a clue on how to live this way when it translates this verse, “I’ve lived to please you; lived for your approval.” That’s the difference between Hezekiah and me. He lived to please God. I live to please people. He looked for God’s approval. I look for man’s approval.
Too often my focus is on the wrong place. Too often I do what I do for those around me to see. I want the affirmation, the applause, the congratulations. The resulting feeling is momentary, fleeting, temporary. It’s constant striving, wearing myself out, never good enough.
Have you ever found yourself in that cycle. Trying to please those around you but never doing enough, never being enough, to keep them happy? We break that cycle when we shift our focus to pleasing God alone. When we live for His approval, the weight of trying to keep everyone happy falls on His shoulders instead of ours.
And the best part is that God is already pleased with you. We can’t work for His approval. In Christ, we are a new creation. His righteousness is our righteousness. So, we can hear God’s voice speak over us, “This is my child in whom I am well pleased.”
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