If you haven’t read the story of King Hezekiah, I encourage you to do it today. I’ve been caught up studying about this guy in the midst of my “worship” study and can’t get past all learning about this man’s efforts to restore the will and work of God among his people. Now I promised myself I would not write ridiculously long posts anymore (mainly because of my wife and Gratto’s comments) so I’ll have to share my recent discoveries in short bursts of eye-pooping, energy-packed literary overloads.

Let’s start with a short background. If you’ve read 1 and 2 Chronicles, you know kings came and went regularly, began their reigns at various ages, and chose to either do what was right in the eyes of God or or quite the opposite. Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, chose the latter and made quite a mess of things in Judah. When he died, Hezekiah took his place at the age of 25 and immediately started fixing the idolatrous disaster his father had created.

25…wow. How often do you see leaders that young take hold of their ability and influence and change an entire culture? You might be surprised to know it happens all the time. In fact, I bet it happens to some extent in every generation. How old was Jesus? how old was Martin Luther King when people started listening? How old was Hitler when he wrote Mein Kampf Search your history books and you’ll see almost every major historical event was prompted by the efforts and/or actions of that generation’s younger leaders.

It is happening around us right now within the church. Young pastors and leaders are veering from traditional norms and promoting new and sometimes controversial church methodology they believe better communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to their generation. I would never say the previous generation’s church leaders have left mess we need to clean up like Hezekiah’s father left for him. It just begs the question, are you one that just follows the footsteps of your fathers or choose to make your own tracks in the sand?