Seeking The God Of His Father (2 Chronicles 34:3)

 



Friday, August 30, 2024


Psalms 148; 149

2 Chronicles 33:21-34:13

Romans 16:1-16


Seeking The God Of His Father (2 Chronicles 34:3)


It must have only just been the other week when we reflected on how God can move very quickly indeed. The people under King Hezekiah praised God for moving so quickly; it was quite unexpected, and so they just had to sing for joy!


Today we have a more relatable account of God’s pace in the lives of human beings. Josiah became king when he was eight years old. When he turned sixteen, he began to seek after God – I think there are more than a few of us who can relate to discovering the existential crisis in the melodrama of our teenage-hood. Upon turning twenty, full of the vigour and zeal one expects of every young man, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of demon worship. Then in his mid-twenties, on the verge of self-realisation of his responsibility and godly potential, he began to repair the Temple.


King Josiah seems eminently relatable. In this account it is difficult not to see a recognisable pattern in the life of every believer who is raised in the church. We can be surrounded by the teaching of spiritual and wise leaders, but it is not until we ourselves go through the process of search and discovery that we can truly call ourselves Christians. Every generation has to learn for itself what it means to love the Lord.


Our work of the sword and the trowel means we should expect and prepare for Christian generations to be raised up in the church. And so, in that preparation, we can be sure not to be surprised when those who will inherit this work seem to go off the rails a little bit. God writes our lives as narratives, with each of us an adventuring hero. We all need to go through ups and downs before we come to the glorious conclusion. And if we are gentle and patient with new Christians in the same way our Lord was gentle and patient with us, then we can know we are truly doing the Lord’s work.


Compare your faith journey to a human lifespan. What decade are you living in? What have you overcome in the past? What can you look forward to growing into?


God of my fathers, I bless you for keeping your promise to them by raising me into faith in the Lord Jesus. May I walk the journey you have prepared for me, and may you bless those spiritual generations who will follow after me.

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