Help! Where Do You Turn First?
One king; two examples from 2 Chronicles 14-16 (Holy Hump Day! #8)
Life throws you a curve ball:
You get a pink slip.
Your marriage gets rocky.
Someone gets sick.
Your kid hits puberty.
A natural disaster wipes you out.
The cancel mob doesn’t like what you said.
The unknown or the unexpected will hit you. You can expect it. But you most likely won’t predict when.
What’s your instinctive reaction? Where do you turn first for help?
Your spouse? A wise elder? A friend? A doctor? Google? Yourself?
Asa the Great
Solomon’s great-grandson, Asa, was the first reformer among Judah’s kings, after Solomon himself set the nation on a path of idolatry and civil strife. Asa had the courage to return his kingdom to proper worship and remove the idols.
This would have required nerves of steel to face down the powerful people profiting from the status quo, as well as the hordes of people who enjoyed the idolatry. It does have the promise of pleasure, after all. Throw in the people who genuinely believed that this would anger the foreign gods and would have fought to keep the high places. You start to see the weight of Asa’s task.
But Asa persevered in pursuing the Lord and commanding the people to follow. This led to a long stretch of peace and strength after two generations of wickedness and civil war. The nation finally had a rest.
Evil doesn’t sleep, however, so an Ethiopian king decided to invade. Asa was outnumbered almost 2:1 and outmatched in weaponry.
While it’s not mentioned in the text, this seems exactly like God’s sort of test.
Facing overwhelming opposition again, Asa prays, “Lord, there is no one besides You to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength; so help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in You, and in Your name have come against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God; let not man prevail against us.” (2 Chronicles 14:11, NASB)
The prophet Azariah’s speech in chapter 15, I think, backs up the idea that this was a test, for he says that God will be with them when they are with Him.
Asa passed. He turned to the Lord first, before knowing it was a test.
He then led the people in rededicating themselves to proper worship and rooting out the idols. Things are good for another long stretch.
Asa Falters
But in his age, peace, and prosperity, Asa faltered. You can read about it in chapter 16, but through another prophet, God calls out Asa for trusting someone other than Him for help. And the final comment on Asa’s life is that he trusted the doctors instead of God before he died.
We don’t know what happened in between. But we know that when he was young, Asa went to God for help first. With that strength, he fought some big battles, both political and military—and won heftily.
Why turn to another king to help against a smaller threat? Why ignore the God who gave you victory against the odds when you get an illness that doesn’t seem life-threatening?
Maybe the example of his fathers was too strong. Or his success and comfort made him overconfident. Either way, he falters, and his son follows a similar path of early faithfulness and later failure.
God wants to walk with you through all of it. Turn to Him first, and you’ll see Him work.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a huge life-changing event, or a small problem just like one you’ve faced before.
He might surprise you with a new way to solve it, giving you a new reason to give Him praise and glory, a new way to show your family that the Lord is real in your lives.
He wants to help, let Him.
For encouragement, here’s a decently faithful musical rendition of Psalm 121
In addition to Imago Dad, Brandon Wilborn writes fantasy with spiritual themes. His current project is a series for young readers about a dog with an imagination that highlights the classic virtues of our Judeo-Christian heritage. But he’s already got a couple of fantasy books and stories available at BrandonWilborn.com