Healing Our Land

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves

and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,

then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)



I find great comfort in this passage. God told Solomon these words a while after the dedication of the Temple. Earlier, Solomon had asked for God to make provision for the people when they sinned.

Every time I read these words, I pause at the four conditions God lays out for the people (us) to follow. 1.) Humble ourselves-admit when we have sinned. Face up to it; call it by name. 2.) Pray to God-come clean that we are sinners. Ask His forgiveness. 3.) Seek to get close to God-the closer we get to Him the more He knows we mean business. 4.) Change our behavior. Turn our backs to bad behavior.

As I study this for this topic, I find myself caught by God’s response to our acting on the conditions He set forth. 1.) He will hear our confessions. 2.) He will forgive our sin. He will erase it from His memory, 3.) He will heal our land. He will fix all He sees wrong in our land.

Being a writer, I enjoy words. The verb ‘will’ has a definite feel of certainty about it. God doesn’t say “Oh, I might.” Or “Hey, I can.” He doesn’t say, “Gee, I wish I could.” He says, “I will.”

We still have to meet the conditions set forth by God but we have God’s word, that when we do, He will revive our land