When Ish-Bosheth son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he lost courage, and all Israel became alarmed. – 2 Samuel 4:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 28, 2019): 2 Samuel 4

Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” It is the truth of our lives. Most of us have realized, at some point in our lives, that our successes pass us by with great speed. We recognize, among our friends, the ones who seem to continually relive the achievements of their early life. Often it is a sad moment when we realize that our accomplishments live only in our memories. And it is the beginning of death when we stop looking forward to the successes that still wait for us in the future.

But just as success is not final, neither is failure either final nor fatal. For instance, Genesis 3 describes the Fall of man. When we think of the story, usually only one thing comes to mind. Eve took the forbidden fruit off of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she ate it. Often in our minds, we think that she then went and found her husband, Adam, and gave him some to eat as well. But that is not what the Bible says. “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her (Italics mine), and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6). Adam was there all along. He likely heard the voice of the Serpent. He gave tacit approval to the eating of the fruit. This was their failure. But their failure was not fatal. Adam compounded the first error, with a second; Adam hid and tried to conceal his failure from God. Then he compounded it once more by blaming Eve for failure, rather than accepting responsibility for all that had gone wrong. With each decision, the failure of Adam and Eve got just a little worse. Finally, God forced them out of the Garden. Their failure is still not fatal, but now they have to decide whether or not they have the courage to continue. Life outside of the Garden of Eden will be much different than it was inside the Garden.

It is evident that Ish-bosheth is a figurehead in Israel. The real power behind the throne was Abner. When Abner dies, Ish-bosheth recognizes that he is in trouble. Ish-bosheth has a choice. He can take hold of his rule and his kingdom and work on the next steps for both himself and the nation. Maybe one of the best steps he could have taken would have been for Ish-bosheth to reach out to David and attempt to unify the nation. The problem is that the King seems to have a little appetite to be King. As long as Abner was willing to run the country, Ish-Bosheth was comfortable with being the figurehead. With Abner gone, turning the nation over to David was a good solution. The failure of Ish-bosheth’s reign did not have to be fatal.

But instead of finding a solution, Ish-bosheth lost the courage to continue. And that was fatal. He knew it, and evidently so did the nation. When Ish-bosheth lost courage, the country became alarmed. They no longer had a leader that could, with courage, lead them into the future. Now they were all waiting for the next disaster to fall.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 1