At that time the seer Hanani came to King Asa
of Judah, and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Aram, and did not
rely on the Lord your God, the
army of the king of Aram has escaped you. Were not the Ethiopians and
the Libyans a huge army with exceedingly many chariots and cavalry? Yet because
you relied on the Lord, he
gave them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range
throughout the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is true to him.
You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars.”
- 2 Chronicles 16:7-9
Last
Saturday, I spent the better part of the day at a pair of graduation
ceremonies, watching first my wife and then my brother get their respective master’s
degrees. Like most graduations, both of theirs featured speeches from the
university presidents, chancellors, and provosts. The content of every speech
differed slightly from its predecessor, but there was a note that echoed
throughout the day, something every speaker wanted to emphasize: the importance
of lifelong learning. The speakers wanted to make sure graduates understood
that no degree was a license to quit thinking, exploring, and understanding.
The task of every graduate, they said, was to build upon the knowledge their
education had imparted, to never stop learning. Graduation was not the end of a
finite journey, merely the next step in a lifetime of education.
That
message came to mind this week as I read the brief biography of King Asa of Judah,
found in 2 Chronicles 14-16. According to the author, King Asa was a good king
for most of his 41-year reign—he removed pagan altars and shrines from the
land, pointed the people back to God’s commandments, and as a result was
blessed with peace and prosperity for most of his reign. When war did eventually
come to Judah, Asa prayed to God for help before doing anything else, trusting
God to give His people the victory, and his faith was rewarded when Judah won
an overwhelming victory over superior numbers.
But
when a neighboring nation attacked in the final years of Asa’s reign, he chose a
different way. This time, instead of seeking God’s aid, he went straight to the
king of Aram, offering him riches from the Temple’s treasuries in exchange for
a military alliance against his enemy. In the ensuing fight, his short-lived
alliance gave him victory, but it came at a cost: a prophet of God promised Asa
that there would be no more peace for the remainder of his reign, and that he
had cost himself victories by preferring human assistance to divine aid.
Asa,
who had spent decades faithfully seeking God first, made a mistake much like
the one those graduation speakers warned against: when it came to his
relationship with God, he decided he had nothing more to learn. As the years
had gone by, he’d started to regard God’s victories as his victories, God’s
power as his power. So when opposition came, instead of remembering God as his
source of strength, he instead treated God like training wheels, a helpful aid
that he’d now outgrown.
The
older you get and the more God blesses you, the more tempting it becomes to
think that you’ve somehow moved past your need for Him, that prayer and worship
are crutches you can discard after a while. But the truth that King Asa bears
witness to is that your relationship with God is not something you outgrow, but
something you mature into. There is no amount of money, influence, or education
that will remove your need for a Savior—so if your desire is to know God,
prepare for a lifetime of learning.
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