Who do we trust when we are in trouble?  Who do we turn to when the sins of our past catch up with us?  Who is really our God?

For the most part the southern kingdom had followed the ways of the LORD except for the high places.  But then King Ahaz comes along and he went the ways of the people that the LORD had driven out before Israel.  He sacrificed his son in the fire and imitated their ways.

Then when he was being besieged instead of calling on the LORD for help, he gave great wealth of the temple to Assyria and asked for them to come rescue him.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, when in Damascus he saw an altar there and copied it.  Then he had Uriah the priest in Judah make a replica.  Displacing the sacred items of worship in Jerusalem, the sacrifices, offerings and festivals were now on the “new and improved” altar to the foreign gods.

It was deplorable.

How can this happen?

But am I much different?  How many times have I tried to work my own rescue and my own miracle for it to end up in disaster?  Who do I depend on when the suffering is intense and long and not changing?  What do I sacrifice in order to relieve the suffering?  Will I wait and practice “long-suffering” in the LORD when deliverance from suffering doesn’t come on my time table?