What might yet be...

What a sad chapter is 2 Kings 17.  It’s about the fall of Israel. After generations of idolotry and warnings of pending judgment, God is finally done warning them, and so allows their destruction and exile to Assyria. It reads like a court bailiff reading a list of all their charges and crimes, the opportunities that they had to learn from their mistakes, to repent and turn back to the Lord, their refusal to do so, and then the details of their sentence of destruction, and the record of how it all played out.

The verse, “They went after false idols and became false…” stood out to me as profound.  It reminded of Psalm 115:4-8 - "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. O Israel, trust the Lord!" This is why we have to be SO careful about the things we give first place to in our lives.  We may not even realize we are allowing an idol into our lives at times, but whatever we choose to bow down to, we soon begin to resemble…

It’s sad, because you can feel the sense in this chapter of “What could have been”. If only they had trusted in the Lord their God.  But the chapter echoes with the phrase, “…but they would not listen “.

It makes me think of all the times in our own lives when we “will not listen”, but instead just plow ahead thinking we know everything…we know best, and we miss out on the opportunities to see, “What might have been” in our own lives, if only we had listened to and trusted the Lord our God.

God desires our whole hearts and He will not share them with any other thing.  He desires for us to faithfully trust Him with the hard things, the painful things, the difficult things, the impossible things…but also with the good things...the blessings and the abundance that He provides. Honestly, it’s actually in our abundant times when we are often most tempted to be unfaithful to Him.

The point is, the Father invites us to live our lives WITH Him, trusting Him to lead us, guide us, to protect us and provide for us, to correct us when our own intuition, desires, or fears (damaged as they are by our fallen human condition) are leading us astray.  He invites us to reject the "false idols"of life, to kneel before Him alone, submitting ourselves to His authority alone.  He invites is to obey only Him, abiding in Him, resting in Him, and walking with Him, and thereby seeing what might yet be, if only we will trust in Him.

“ For the eyes of the Lord search to and fro throughout the whole Earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9