Rats scurried in the corner of the damp jail cell. A single beam of light trickled down from the small opening in the large wooden door that shut out the outside world. There he sat, half the man he once was. No, he wasn't even close enough to his old life to even consider himself the same person, he thought to himself. If only his ancestors could see him now. They wouldn't claim me as their own, he couldn't help but believe. And what if those in his home country could see him, sitting in rags and smelling of decay and waste, what would they think? He could almost hear the jeers and laughter spilling from their mouths.
How dare he be treated in such a way! He deserved the highest respect, yet whenever he alluded to this fact to a guard, his treatment would always suffered. In their eyes, he was no longer important or looked after, and he began to believe the same. No, now he was nothing, and the squander of the jail cell around him constantly reminded him of that fact. Everything he had ever put value in had been unceremoniously stripped from his hands. The pride he once felt now haunted him as if to say, "You may have thought you once important, but you've never been anything more than a broken water jar with potential to do something of use to this world yet so broken and incomplete that you have never and could never be of use to a single person on this planet." Rock bottom? He laughed; this was literally his reality.
So there he sat, in filth and all, trying to escape from himself. He thought of better times yet realized that he had to go back to his childhood to find such a time. Life was good back then. Everything he could ever want or need was brought to him. He had a life every boy or girl would envy, but this happy life had nothing to do with all those possessions. In a way it had to do with his father. He could still remember the nights when they would sit under the stars and his father would tell of their ancestors and how they had been led by the one true God. Even now he laughed at this exclusive Being that his father and many of his father's fathers had worshiped. He had learned quickly after his father's death that such a God couldn't be trusted. No, this God had rob him of all his joy. Yes, his father claimed that this God had already extended his life, but no, a God of love wouldn't take away a boy's father when he was only twelve years old, at a time when he needed him the most.
Everything had fallen to him. The responsibilities were endless and stress continual. The stress was what drove him to into what his father would have called, "the way of the evil one." Oh how he hated every time his father's best friend would approach him and tell him about how he was ruining his life and would some day suffer the consequences of the life he was now choosing to follow. Yet the silence of death, a horrible death he could now admit, hadn't stopped this warnings from constantly ringing in his ears.
But now he was nothing, and if there were such an all-knowing God, then this indeed was his punishment. "A punishment worse than death", he mumbled to himself. It was too late to make his life right, too late to set the record straight. His life had indeed been ruined and it was all his fault. This God, perhaps He was real, must hate him for the atrocities that had been done against Him by this man sitting in the dungeon.
Well, he hated this God, too! Sorrow and pain had been all he had ever known. Yes, he had a life of pleasure but a pleasure that could never satisfy and hunger and thirst that could never be quenched. Anger welled up inside of him as he slowly rose to his feet. He looked up into the black rock above him, trying to imagine the stars shining down like they had in his childhood, yet the blackness that never seemed to end covered every spark of light that possibly shown past his trapped cell.
With words of curse he yelled, his voice echoing around him causing him to scream all the louder. All the pain he had felt, not just during this imprisonment, but every moment of his life poured out in a long stream of profanity. His emotions rose and grew until in a final cry he realized that he had nothing else to say. Here in this dark prison he had taken out all his anger and wrath out on this God of his father's. As his words faded into the forever silent darkness, he suddenly realized that this God, if he really was there, had every reason to strike him dead. Had anyone else in history committed so many atrocities against Him? Tears filled his eyes as he visualized every wrong choice: the prophets he had condemned to death, his own people who he had lead astray, and worst of all the children that he had offered to the god's of other lands as a sacrifice. No, death was the only thing he deserved and if he could he would end this miserable life right now.
Suddenly, out of the dark silence came the words of his father's friend which seemed to whisper down into his cell. He could still remember the last time he had heard these words, first spoken while his father still lived and then spoken for the last time right before his father's friend Isaiah's life was cut short. He still remembered the eyes of this godly man, burning right into his soul yet lovingly inviting at the same time, as the words were spoken. "Manasseh, the God of Heaven who you refuse to accept declares that though your sins cover you as a scarlet robe, when you turn back to God He will make them as white as snow. Though your righteousness of rags be red like crimson, he can turn your broken life into brand-new woolen robe fit for a king."
The tears that were welling up in his eyes now began to flow freely as this ever reaching love began to flow over him for the first time in years. Barely spoken aloud, quieter than a whisper, Manasseh spoke words that he had never expected to say: "Save me. Help me. Cleanse me." Again and again he repeated these words and the strange feelings of love grew until the pain and sorrow of these past years, this past life, began to fall away. The God he had rejected and cursed, the God he had hated and scorned, the God who had silently listened to every angry word had now answered in the most unbelievable way. Instead of repaying Manasseh as he rightly deserved, giving back to him exactly what he had so gleefully shoved into this God's face, the exact opposite had been extended with open arms.
Peace.
Acceptance.
Forgiveness.
Understanding.
Hope.
Love. Unconditional love.
Was it possible? Could this even be believed?
So there, in a dark and dirty dungeon, this once proud king of Judah finally accepted the light that he had been fighting for his entire life. We don't much about what caused Manasseh to turn back to God after so many years of literally doing everything he could do against God. Yet however that actually event took place, the truth is that his story gives hope to every single child of God who has fallen away from Him or spent his or her whole life fighting against God. God's love can never end and it can never be overcome by anything we could ever do.
"Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God!" 1 John 3 (NKJV)
