Today’s Scripture Reading (November
16, 2019): 2 Chronicles 11
Winston
Churchill said that “A kite flies against the wind, not
with it.” And if there is no wind, the kite can’t get off the ground. A kite
requires opposition to get up into the air. And a kite is a lot like life. We
dream of a life without problems and opposition. But that is not life. We need
some resistance to grow and get stronger. Resistance allows us to learn how to
navigate life and develop best practices. This is a physical reality. Of
course, the reverse is also true. If we do not have the right posture or desire
to persist in the presence of the wind, then opposition can, and will, crush
us. A kite might fly against the wind, but if it does not have the proper
design, a kite will do nothing in the presence of the wind but crash.
But God also uses opposition to
help us develop spiritually. We are not supposed to live in echo chambers where
everyone agrees with us. We are supposed to be open to different ideas and
conversations because it might just be that God is trying to speak through
those ideas. God is actively trying to strengthen us and mold us. There might
be nothing more damaging to our spiritual health than the belief that we have
somehow arrived and that every orthodox thought that we hold in our brains
comes straight from the throne of God. For this reason, sometimes the orthodoxy
of the church is also one of the greatest enemies of the movement of God.
Jeroboam and the Northern Tribes
have rebelled against Rehoboam and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
Essentially, the ten Northern Tribes have seceded from the Union of the United
Kingdom of Israel. Judah does not agree, and Rehoboam decides to raise an army
to fight against the Northern Tribes, mainly to try to subdue them, forcing
them to stay in a United Israel.
In the middle of the process, a
prophet steps up and says, “No, don’t do this. God is doing something.” What
was God doing? The easy answer is that he was shaping his people on both sides
of the border. Jeroboam was rebellious, and that rebellion needed to be tamed.
Rehoboam needed to mature and grow up. And history records that maybe neither of
these goals were actually achieved. God might have been at work, but while he
speaks to us, we also have to be willing to listen to his words. As far as the
Northern Kingdom was concerned, they never had a king who followed the God of
Israel. All of them would follow the example of Jeroboam.
Judah’s history was more mixed concerning
God, but Rehoboam never fully served the God who was trying to guide him. And
his son, Abijah, would follow the example of his father. And the directives and
shaping actions of God continued to fall on deaf ears. The wind was blowing,
but both Judah and Israel were out of balance, and therefore all they could do
was crash.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2
Chronicles 12
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