Hidden to Reign

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 130, Hidden to Reign.

"Then they brought out the king's son and put the crown on him and gave him the testimony. And they proclaimed him king, and Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and they said, 'Long live the king.'" 2 Chronicles 23:11.

To understand the weight of this scene, I need to tell you what came before it. When King Ahaziah died, his mother, Athaliah, saw her opportunity and did something horrifying: she ordered the killing of the entire royal family, every heir to David's throne, so that she could rule alone. It was a massacre. And it looked like the line of David — the very line God had promised an eternal kingdom to — was about to be wiped out entirely.

But there was a woman named Jehoshabeath. She was the sister of the dead king, and in the middle of the chaos, she managed to rescue one infant — Joash, the only surviving heir — and hide him, along with his nurse, inside the temple. For six years. Six full years, this child lived hidden away, while Athaliah reigned outside, believing she had eliminated every threat to her power.

Imagine that. Imagine a promise God had made hundreds of years earlier, reduced to a single boy hidden inside a building, resting on the quiet courage of one woman who risked her own life to keep him safe. From the outside, it looked like the promise had died. But God was preserving, in silence, the exact thing He had promised.

And then, in the seventh year, the priest Jehoiada organized everything with extreme care, and on the appointed day, they brought the boy — now seven years old — out of hiding. And notice the order of things in this verse: first, they placed the crown on him. Then they handed him a copy of the covenant — God's Word, the law, the testimony. Before he ruled, he had to carry the Word. Power came after the Word, never before it.

And then came the anointing, and then the shout — a shout that had been held back for six entire years of forced silence: "Long live the king!" It isn't hard to imagine the explosion of emotion in that moment. Years of waiting, years of secrecy, years of quiet faith, all pouring out into a celebration too big to contain.

This story reminds me of a truth worth holding onto: sometimes God's promise in your life looks completely hidden. It looks defeated, wiped out, lost in the middle of the chaos. But God preserves what He has promised, even when that preservation happens in total silence, even when it looks like the enemy has already won. And when the right time comes — His time, not ours — the hidden promise becomes a visible crown.

So today, before breakfast, I want you to do this: name one promise of God that feels completely hidden or delayed in your life right now. That dream that feels dead. That restoration that hasn't come yet. And thank God for it out loud as though it were already fulfilled — because, just like Joash in the temple, it might simply be hidden, waiting for the right moment to be crowned.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.