Because your
heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he
spoke against this place and its people . . . I have heard you, declares the
Lord (2 Chronicles 34:27).
[Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and
walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to
the left (NIV 1984, 34:2).
The parallel account in 2 Kings says this about Josiah: Neither
before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he
did – with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength (2 Kings 23:25).
Josiah became king
at age 8, and began to search out the things of God when he was 16. At age 20
he purged from Judah every vile and offensive thing. When he was 26, he started
the work of repairing the temple, which led to the discovery of the Book of the
Law.
Josiah was not some
cavalier young man following his basest instincts until suddenly being
confronted with the Word of God. He had already been pursuing God for sixteen
years. When God revealed his plan to punish Judah, how easy would it have been
for Josiah to throw a tantrum? Don’t you see everything I’ve done
for you? But he didn’t. He
submitted to the words of God and found favor in God’s eyes.
Reminds me of Job: The
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised (Job 1:21). Oh for grace to trust God like
that.
TODAY’S MEDITATION
What does God’s sovereignty
mean to you? How do you respond to bad news? What can you do about that?
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