2 Chronicles 6 Devotional

Heard Even in a Far Land

“then may You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place, their prayer and pleas, and may You uphold their cause. May You forgive Your people who sinned against You.”2 Chronicles 6:39 (BSB)

Solomon kneels on a bronze platform in front of the whole assembly, spreads his hands toward heaven, and prays (6:13). He begins with what God has already done. What the LORD promised David with his mouth, he has carried out with his hand (6:4, 6:15).

Solomon asks God to hear when Israel is defeated, when the rain stops, when famine or plague comes (6:24-28). Then he goes further. Because everyone sins, he pictures the people carried off as captives to a distant land, and he asks that if they come to their senses there and pray toward this place, God would hear from heaven and forgive (6:36-39). Chronicles will end in just that setting, with Judah in exile and God stirring a king to send them home (36:22-23). Long before the disaster, God was already being asked for mercy beyond it. No distance you have wandered lies outside the hearing of a God who forgives those who turn back to him.

To think about: Where do you feel far from God right now, and what would it look like to turn and pray from right where you are?