My daily time in the Bible doesn’t always result in profound takeaways. Sometimes it feels more like a meal that afterwards I forgot I ate if I am being honest. However, I am thankful for moments that I get to drill down on a particular text and ponder what I’m reading and what the Lord wants me to see and obey as a result. As I read through the Bible chronologically I’ve been in 1 Kings/2 Chronicles. This past week I read about King Asa. He reigned as king for 41 years, and he appeared to be devoted to God and good to God’s people for most of those years. However, in his last years, something changed. 2 Chronicles 16:12 jumped out at me as I read it, “In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians.”
C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.” God was shouting, but Asa put his fingers in his ears and quit seeking the Lord for help. Instead, he relied on his resources, connections, and access to medicine. In short, Asa trusted in himself. Is God against modern medicine? No. He’s against self-reliant hearts. King Asa’s heart posture affected more than his health but also how he approached his responsibilities as king (see 2 Chronicles 16:7-10).
If I’m being honest, I share the same heart as King Asa more often than I’d like to admit. Just like him, I’ve seen in my life that has been shorter than Asa reigned as king, how the year over year battles, successes, struggles, victories, heartaches, and mundane moments present a unique temptation that whispers to my heart, “You’ve been here before. You’ve got this.” This temptation creeps into our families, finances, careers, and relationships. If we believe this lie, a deadly drift will begin to wreak havoc on the very calling God has for each of us. The tendency to trust in ourselves is easy but it doesn’t have to be inevitable.
Colossians 2:6-7 says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” We don’t receive Christ from a place of self-reliance but from a place of desperate need. As Christians, we embrace the fact that Jesus Christ alone saves. We don’t just embrace it, we rejoice in it. This isn’t only true of when we first place our faith in Jesus, but as we “walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” Day after day, year after year, decade after decade, God is calling us to remember that we don’t outgrow our need, just deeper in our awareness of it and deeper in dependence upon Christ as a result. We must remember our need, and rejoice in our Savior.
I know some of you are struggling to trust the Lord in the midst of an onslaught of trials in your life - my heart is burdened for you as I write this. Perhaps you feel hurt and helpless. Perhaps you feel numb. I want to suggest to you that sometimes our problem isn’t that we feel helpless, it’s that we don’t feel helpless enough. Coming to the end of who we are is the beginning of coming to know all that God is for us. God opposes the proud, self-reliant, but he always gives grace to the humble (Psalm 138:6; Proverbs 3:34; Luke 1:52; James 4:6). Christ does not tire of receiving you. His love doesn’t waiver. He cannot fail. Come to Jesus today.