One of the challenges I have taken on this year in addition to revolutionizing our eating and embracing fitness has been to read the Bible in a year.  I’ve read a lot of parts of the Bible over a lot of years of my life, but this is the first time I’ve arrowed straight through.  The challenge is literal – one of the best parts of my company is our charitable giving foundation.  They support some really amazing Christ-centered ministries around the world, and they do a great job of supporting us employees as well.  At the end of last year, an announcement was posted:  if any employee wanted to take on the challenge to read the Bible in the year, we would be provided with a Bible just for that purpose, at no cost.  On top of that, each person who completes the challenge will select a favorite Christian charitable organization to receive a $100 donation.  Amazing, right?

Unlike some popular “chronological” plans, the bible we received is a straight-through, New Living Translation, which I am really enjoying.  I’ve just come to the end of 2 Chronicles, and I have found it fascinating.  It can sometimes be overwhelming to read through so many genealogies, but between them the stories of the kings of Israel and Judah are riveting in their repetition.  That seems like a paradox.  Or is it an oxymoron?  Anyway, from Saul to David to all the many generations beyond, hundreds of years can be categorized in one of two ways.  When the king trusted God and led his country to worship Him alone, king and nation thrived in times of peace, victory, and success.  When the king turned from God to worship pagan deities and relied on military strength, divination, or bribes (often paid with objects belonging to the Temple) instead of His assurances, they failed miserably, were overrun, and often died horribly as a result of their life’s choices.  Over, and over, and over again.

Even Solomon, who built the Temple and fell down in wonder when God’s presence visibly filled it at the dedication ceremony, who was visited directly by God and offered anything he could choose and, choosing wisdom, was also blessed with riches beyond measure… even he failed at the end, allowing and encouraging worship of false gods at the “high places” that God had repeatedly told Israel to get rid of.  I’ve wondered before why there are so many historical records of kings, wars, and successions, but I finally got the “30,000 foot view”.  God keeps his promises!  “If you worship me and keep my laws, I will bless you.”  “Because you put your faith in power when I asked you to put it in Me, the result of your actions will be your own destruction.”  There’s mercy in there too – even kings who turned away from the Lord, when they truly repented, were given grace, often with a physical rescue from their enemy.

All of this is both humbling and reassuring.  If even Solomon, who witnessed God’s power in the most real powerful way we could imagine, could grow complacent enough in his blessings to turn from his passion for God, so can we.  Perhaps it was a literal seduction; he did have an awful lot of women in his life, and much has been lost in history because of relationship blindness.  We aren’t told, but I don’t think we need to be – the reminder is that it would easily be any of us when self  and might is indulged to excess.  The reassuring part is that each time a king decided to break from the pattern of his predecessor and return to God, especially when he restored the Temple, got rid of the foreign altars, and most especially when he got out the Book of Law and actually read it, he and his people enjoyed a time of rich blessings and peace.

It’s easy to see this as punitive – God waiting to punish anyone who doesn’t follow a ritual to the letter, but I don’t believe that’s true at all.  There are certainly plenty of cases where it’s made clear that life is God’s to give or take, I think those histories are instead a case, with plentiful evidence, for cause and effect.  When I am well-versed in His “Book of Law” (the Law now being Love) and spending time with Him, I am nurturing my love for Him.  I am not straining to hear from Him because I am in constant conversation with Him.  Filled with His Spirit, I am free to love my neighbor as myself, free from dependence on outside crutches, free from panic and perpetual distress.  When I start to believe the lie that He is not enough, I am unsure, desperate to surround myself with whatever armor or weapons keeps me alive, constantly at the whim of my human emotions, cheap joys, and temporary calm.  And there’s the other lesson too – while I am not a king, I am mindful that none of us lives in a vacuum.  As lived the king, so lived the people.  Whatever the size of your sphere of influence, what are your constituents witnessing in you?