Humility over Self-Preservation

A Note for Your Day

In 1 Kings 12:25-33, we see King Jeroboam, the son of King Solomon, use God to ensure self-preservation of his political reign. After Solomon’s death, the united nation of Israel split into the Southern and Northern Kingdoms, with the North ruled by King Jeroboam. Because the Southern Kingdom of Judah contained Jerusalem, which was where the original temple was for the worship of YHWH, King Jeroboam had to draw the Northern Kingdom’s attention away from the former religious home. He knew that if the people of the North kept going to Jerusalem, they’d turn their hearts back to the South and eventually call for his death (v. 27). So out of a desire for self-preservation, Jeroboam erects new temples, creates golden calves as images of God, and beckons his subjects to worship there instead of Jerusalem. All of these actions to draw people away from Jerusalem were violations of the law laid out in Deuteronomy about proper worship, which God will not take kindly to (1 Kings 13).

We can be like King Jeroboam. Out of desire for self-preservation, we can draw undue attention to ourselves and thus violate God’s will for us. Instead of enshrining vanity and avarice like our culture encourages, can we set good boundaries around us so that all of creation can flourish? Let us see and hear God moving elsewhere and be comfortable with that.

Such a perspective will require humility. I pray The Lord grant you that today.