There are times in our lives when we make biblical decisions that are really dumb.
And costly.
I’m not talking about choices made in alignment with the precepts of the Lord but instead decisions similar in prideful foolishness to those made by Bible characters.
Scripture is filled with examples of bad decisions. That’s actually one of the reasons that we can trust the integrity of the Bible. Other religions’ dogma manuals don’t describe the failures of the religion’s heroes, calling into question the objectivity of the writings.
When we read of the sins of one usually faithful Bible character after another, we sometimes see ourselves.
Adam and Eve believed the lie that God was lying and they suffered as a result.
Of course, we still suffer today from their sin.
Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samson, David, Solomon …. the list goes on of people who were famous for their biblical lives yet flawed in their conduct.
The common threads? Their good choices were made by asking God first and their bad choices were made without asking God first.
There is a cost to not asking God in prayer if we should do certain things.
Today’s reading in the One-Year Bible provides another confirmation of this truth.
Judah’s King Josiah picked a fight with Pharoah Neco that he should have avoided.
But King Josiah didn’t pray about it first.
HUGE mistake.
King Josiah lost his life because he didn’t pray to God for direction.
You can read about it by clicking here.
This was so sad, so unnecessary.
King Josiah had just led his people in a thrilling time of national revival and one would think that praying to God would have been the first thing the king did.
But perhaps overconfidence took over and Josiah ignored King Solomon’s timeless warning recorded in Proverbs 16:18:
“Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.”
Listen, it doesn’t matter how satisfied we feel with our faith and personal competency with the challenges we face in life. If we don’t pray for wisdom, leading and strength — if we try to handle things on our own because we think we know what’s best — bad things will eventually happen.
Judah suffered terribly after Josiah’s debacle and ended up destroyed with many dead and others enslaved.
Let’s pray first before significant decisions, OK?
The cost of not doing so is too high.
As always, I love you
Martin
