II Chronicles 33:12-13 "And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God."
What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? No matter your answer, consider this statement: the worst thing that could happen to you is for nothing bad to happen to you. Imagine that! If you could live without God, you would-and so would I. That is the nature of our flesh, always bent toward wrong. However, God loves us enough to not allow us to live without Him.
King Manasseh was an evil king, so it is no surprise that evil came back to him. It was no doubt shocking when Manasseh "besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him. . . ." You would not have expected this at all!
Notice that Manasseh returned to God "when he was in affliction." Some people have this idea that it is wicked and selfish to pray only when you are in trouble. Can I tell you something? You are always in trouble! Sometimes you are just not smart enough to know that you're in trouble. God, in His goodness, allows our lives to inherit trouble to show us that we are in desperate need of Him. That is exactly why God "brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria" when they would not hearken. God brought the affliction because He loved His people!
The worst thing that could happen to you is for nothing bad to happen to you. You do not ask God for help because you are good; you ask Him for help because you are needy. And if a king can humble himself, you can too.
God is known both by His power and by the might of His mercy. Mercy is not deserved or earned by the person receiving it-that's why it's mercy! God has power to act (sending Assyria against Manasseh) and to not act (showing mercy to Manasseh). No one else can give the kind of mercy that God can give. Today, you can live in confidence, knowing that both the good and the bad in life are conspiring to help you know that you need God.
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