“King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Baylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.””
I can remember going into my girls’ rooms when they were young and calming their fears. I would turn on the closet light or make sure nothing was underneath the bed. It worked most of the time. During those moments, Tina and I were building trust. If our girls did not trust us, their fear would not go away. As soon as Mom or Dad showed up, their hearts would lift out of the closet of fear and begin to be comforted.
King Zedekiah was in a rough spot. All his officials hated Jeremiah; they all wanted to kill him. They even threw him into a cistern with no water and waited for him to starve. Zedekiah was the only one, along with some of the priests, who understood that Jeremiah was a man of God and should never be treated that way. Secretly, Ebed-Melek, the king’s son, snuck into the place where Jeremiah was and lifted him out of the cistern.
The king had another heart-to-heart with Jeremiah. He says to him in verse 14, “Do not hide anything from me.” Jeremiah tells the king again that he needs to surrender to the Babylonians and live or fight and die. In our verse above, the king reveals his honesty with the man of God about being treated badly because of what the Lord was directing them to do. Honesty is always the best policy.
There are times in our lives when we would rather lie than tell the truth. We would rather keep moving forward in sin rather than be honest with the Lord. In Zedekiah’s case, it would have been really easy to just go with the flow and kill Jeremiah, but the king’s personal draw toward the things of the Lord through Jeremiah led him to a personal message from the Lord.
Today, you may come across one of those honesty moments. Are you going to heed the direction of the Lord or not? Will you keep the sin in your life in the driver’s seat, or will you submit to the correction of the Lord and experience His grace? God is not calling His saints to fill our heads with false things and always look through rose-colored glasses. No, He is calling all of us to be honest. Honest in our fears, honest in our struggles, honest in our shortcomings, and honest about how we feel. Honesty is always the best policy because it opens doors of healing and direction from the Lord through people you would never expect. All of Israel hated Jeremiah, yet Zedekiah knew that the man of God spoke for the Lord and sought after him.
Seek after the Lord today, and when you find a quiet place, open your heart with honesty to Him. Just like the commercial says, “Let the healing begin.”
Prayer: Father, I pray that we are always open and honest with You. You know all things, made all things, and have a plan for all things, so I pray that we would stop trying to hide from You, Lord. I pray that we open up our hearts and pray to You, confessing our shortcomings and faults along with all that is on our hearts. Your Word says that You will comfort us and make our paths straight if we acknowledge You in all our ways. That is my prayer today, in Jesus’ name, amen.
Let It Go 
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