“In the future, foreigners…will come from distant lands when they hear of your great name…and when they pray…then hear from heaven where you live, and grant what they ask of you. In this way, all the people of the earth will come to know and fear you…They, too, will know that this Temple…honors your name.”
2 Chronicles 6:32-33 NLT
This prayer may seem irrelevant, unless we remember that WE are now God’s temple. So, can foreigners turn to us in their time of need?
Our world is full of foreigners today. Unprecedented numbers of people are leaving their familiar homelands in search of paradise. However, they are not the only foreigners in our communities. Millions of people are homeless in their own countries. Millions of others feel like foreigners—aliens, outsiders, outcasts, or displaced strangers, as they wander around, floating through life unknown and unwanted.
What will happen when these foreigners cry out to God? Of course, He will hear their cries, but whose feet will carry HIS answer and whose arms will show HIS love? When foreigners look around today, will they spot any safe temples to which they can run?
Solomon’s prayer was a plea that grace would flow from the God who dwelt in the Temple. Several times he prayed, “When you hear, forgive,” and “May your eyes be open and your ears attentive…”
One day God saw me, heard my cries, and by His grace came to dwell in me. Now as HIS temple, will my eyes be open to foreigners around me? Will my ears be attentive to their pleas? And most important, will I freely give them GOD’s grace?
I may be the only “temple” a foreigner will come near!
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