I have to admit, the familiar refrain of “he did evil in the eyes of the Lord” is almost as wearying as turning on the evening news. At some point, my heart becomes dull to the constant drip of sin that surrounds us. Whether news or “entertainment,” we turn on the television or surf the internet and encounter every imaginable sin. Even our parental filters only clean up the most vile, and if they filtered out everything offensive to God, it feels as if there wouldn’t be much left.

Trying to live “in this world but not of this world” is exhausting most days.

But Jesus said that His yoke was easy and His burden light, so I must be doing this wrong.

How do we go from the soul-crushing weight of constant exposure to sin, injustice, oppression, persecution, and tragedy to living the joy-filled Christian life?

Paul admonished the Philippians, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Paul knew a thing or two about how to have joy and contentment despite his overwhelming circumstances. Even those among us who have suffered greatly can look at Paul’s suffering and count ourselves blessed by comparison. As he recounts in 2 Corinthians 11, “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”

Won’t that just bless your heart? Makes my worries seem pretty superficial, praise the Lord!

The burden of suffering is all in our perspective. Paul learned the secret of being content in any circumstance was to depend upon God’s strength. James’s perspective was that he counted it all joy for the sake of growing in maturity in the faith and he, also, counseled that if we lack anything, we should ask God.

I’ve wandered a bit from 2 Kings, but God’s Word is so wonderfully cohesive! The kings who “did good in the eyes of the Lord” were those who turned to God, depended upon God, and sought God alone. As pastor J.D. Greear often says, “If dependence on God is the goal (which it is), weakness is an advantage.”
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Praising God in the weakness, weariness, and neediness of the moment.

Joash’s response to Amaziah’s challenge offers an admonition similar to the one given in a parable by Jesus in Luke 14:7-11. It is tempting, especially after a huge success as Amaziah had experienced, to think more highly of ourselves and our abilities than is warranted.

There are a couple of reasons why we should remain humble. First, and the reason illustrated both in this chapter and in Jesus’ parable of the invited guest who takes a seat of honor and has to be asked to move for the person who is actually being honored — elevating ourselves sets us up to be embarrassed and humbled. And usually in a public way!

Second, the source of our pride is the false notion that we are responsible for the success! An understanding of God’s sovereignty teaches us that even our breath is a gift of God.

Genesis 2:7 “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

Acts 17:24-25 “God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in temples made with human hands. 25 Nor is God served by human hands, as though he needed something, since he is the one who gives life, breath, and everything else.”

Ezekiel 37:5-6 “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, 'Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.”

John 1:3-4 “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

If even our next breath is a gift of God, how can we possibly take credit or seek honor for anything that happens as a result? Only God allows us to draw that next breath. Only God allows us to do whatever it is we have done in our life that might be noteworthy.

Humility is easier when we recognize where the honor resides.

As we watched the Olympics recently, there were once again those who pointed to heaven, to acknowledge that all the glory, honor, and praise for their victory belongs to the God who made them, who gave them their talents, who provided the opportunities which brought them to that moment, and who gave them breath.
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Psalm 150:6 "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord."

What I noticed as I read this chapter was a phrase that has been repeated many times as the Bible recounts the various kings of both Israel and Judah. “He did what was evil/good in the eyes of the Lord.” Each of the leaders of these two kingdoms is summed up with such a statement. Either they did what was good or what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

It made me wonder how my life would be summed up? We all fall short, and even David, who was described as being a man after God’s own heart, failed to live up to God’s standards.

But what we see in these kings as the defining factor in regard to their rule is their perspective on God. Did they worship God or did they elevate some idol to the place of worship, not only for themselves but for those they led by their example?

You and I have those we are leading by example as well. Our children. Our friends. Our co-workers. Our social media connections. Even the people that we interact with on a daily basis as we buy groceries, pump gas, eat in a restaurant.

Are we displaying an example that demonstrates to them who God is, or are we a role model for the worship of materialism, beauty, greed, or hedonism? This is about more than a bumper sticker on your car or attending a church.

The phrase “in the eyes of the Lord” also stuck with me. The repetition of the phrase over and over regarding each of these kings illustrates a critical point that we often overlook.

The only perspective on our life that really matters is God’s.

It doesn’t matter how popular we are. Doesn’t matter that we are a hard worker or a beautiful woman or a smart cookie or a captain of business.

Who are we in God’s eyes?

And this is where I can be really tempted to dive into legalism and try to work up the “she did good in the eyes of the Lord” on my own - what a futile effort that is!
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The gospel is that Jesus did only and always good in the eyes of the Father, and when I claim Him as my savior, God sees only HIS goodness when He looks at me. You and I only have one option to ensure that we "do good in the eyes of the Lord," and that is to depend on the Lord completely.

Raised by Jehoiada the priest, King Jehoash followed God. He even instigated and led the efforts to repair the temple. But when Hazael, the king of Aram, marched toward Jerusalem, his faith faltered and he sent all the holy items that had been dedicated to the temple of the Lord to the king to save the city from disaster. It worked and appeased Hazael, but I have to wonder how it might have worked out if instead of raiding God’s temple to appease a pagan king, Jehoash had prayed and asked God to be his defense?

It’s a great illustration of the battles we often face. We start off strong in the faith. We begin a good work. Initially we face some setbacks, but we persevere through them. Then an attack comes. One that seems overwhelming and insurmountable. Instead of seeing it as the Lord’s battle, giving it to Him, and continuing in what He has called us to, we start looking for a human solution. Sometimes we find that the only solution we can come up with is one that we know is not God’s best.

God’s best solution for Jehoash was not to raid the temple for a bribe. God’s best solution for David was not to arrange Uriah’s murder. His best solution for Peter as he watched Jesus being led away, was not to try to free him by the sword. His best solution in our lives is not to give meagerly to ensure our needs are met first, it’s not to demand justice through violence, or to destroy our future generations for the sake of today’s comfort.
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His best solution for every overwhelming situation we find ourselves in is for us to turn to Him and seek Him with all our hearts. For us to trust that He is a good father, who not only has our very best as His goal, but knows what IS our very best far better than we do!

If you haven’t caught on, this is a period of bloody turmoil in Israel. Not only is the nation divided into the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah), but the turnover in monarchs through treachery, assassination, and war has become routine.

The first question that comes to mind in reading this chapter is why would learning of her son’s death inspire Athaliah to put to death all the princes (her sons and sons of her husband through any concubines)?

It helps to understand who Athaliah is. She is the wife of King Jehoram of Judah, but she is also the daughter of King Ahab of Israel and his wife, Jezebel. Jehoram’s departure from following God as his father King Jehoshaphat had, was inspired by his marriage to Athaliah, who worshipped Baal as her father and mother did. When Jehoram came to power, he slaughtered all his brothers to ensure there was no contender for his throne. Similarly, Athaliah also wanted to secure her power.

Despite being raised under the most godly king mentioned during this era, Jehoram’s dynastic marriage, intended to reunite the two kingdoms, served to introduce Baal worship in Judah, and to almost destroy the royal line. The work of Jehoshaphat’s lifetime of trying to turn Judah back to worship God was undone and they slipped even further away.

2 Corinthians 6:14 encourages us not be unequally yoked — that is, not to partner with, in marriage or otherwise, those who do not share our faith. Every instance of such a partnership in the Bible depicts the godly slipping away from the Lord, never them drawing the unbeliever into relationship.
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Once we have aligned ourselves with those who have no reverence for God, we have already compromised our faith. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should be unkind, discriminatory, or hateful; and it doesn’t mean we can’t associate with unbelievers. After all, Jesus dined with sinners. But as believers, our committed relationships, the people upon whom we depend and who influence our decisions, should be ones who share our worldview and our values, people who exhort us to grow in our faith, people who hold us accountable when we drift from our moral plumb lines.

This chapter is tough. I could talk about how God brings judgment on those who’ve rejected Him, as Ahab did, but it’s just hard for us to understand that judgment falling on the sons of Ahab, especially when the suggestion is that they weren’t necessarily grown men.

The text is clear: The Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” (Verse 30) To be clear, what God is praising in this verse is that Jehu has destroyed the temple of Baal and slaughtered every single member of Ahab’s family, as well as anyone connected to him in any way.

I definitely don’t have the answers when it comes to a chapter like this.

But two thoughts come to mind: God is good, and His goodness requires that He destroy evil.

These are the scriptures that require extreme faith. They require us to trust God’s goodness even when we don’t understand. And that is really important because there will be days in our life when things happen that we don’t understand and we will need to know that God is good.

They’re important because God is holy. Of all the attributes of God, holiness is the one that we will sing of forever according to Revelation. It’s also the attribute that we sometimes fail to dwell on here on earth. These days we prefer to dwell on God’s mercy, His grace, His love.

Thinking about God’s holiness is a painful reminder of how unholy we are. Considering passages like this reminds us that God will not will not allow evil to dwell in His presence. Psalm 1:5 puts it succinctly: “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”
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If it were up to us to earn a place among the assembly of the righteous, we would be as without hope as Ahab. But in God’s mercy and grace, He poured out wrath even greater than the devastation of Ahab’s family on His Son, so that He might pour out blessings and forgiveness on those who would trust in Him.

There are some passages in scripture that make me chuckle, like this one: “The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi—he drives like a maniac.” Some things haven’t changed in over 3000 years!

But this chapter is deadly serious. It describes the fulfillment of God’s prophesied judgment on King Joram, the house of Ahab, and Jezebel.

Although many scoff at the idea of God’s judgment today, it is as certain today as it was 3000 years ago. Experiencing God’s judgment is a choice — if all goodness and blessings are from the Lord, then rejecting Him is to decline His generosity and grace. To decline any good thing that exists, because they all come from Him.

The amazing thing about His grace is that He continues to bless us in so many ways, despite our faithlessness, for so long!

We see His steadfast grace toward David, despite his moral failures. We see it in His delaying the entrance of the Israelites into the Promised Land because the pagan nations there had not yet reached the end of His mercy. We see it in his delay of judgment on Ahab’s house until after Ahab has died — what grace it was to not allow him to see the downfall he brought on his family!

We see it in our own lives when we fail time after time to do what we know is right. Such abundant grace can lull us into thinking that God doesn’t see, that He won’t judge, that He is all love and tolerance as the world would like to believe, and no judgment.

But this chapter tells us otherwise.

The cross tells us otherwise. God’s judgment on us for our sin was poured out on His Son, so that grace might be offered to us. But like His blessings and goodness, the grace offered to us at the cross must be received.

Imagine someone ships you a gift from Amazon, but you don’t believe it’s real, don’t think you need it, or think you aren’t good enough for such a gift, so you leave it sitting on your porch. Years go by, and you never open it. Never put it to use in your life. Never give thanks for it. You never actually received it, despite it sitting on your porch waiting. Just waiting for you to make it yours.

Well, life goes on, and you do just fine without the gift, right?

But what if you are dying of thirst, so far gone that you barely recognize the need any longer. Tongue so swollen you can’t swallow. And that gift is a lifetime supply of fresh spring water!

What if you’re already dead, and that gift is an Automated External Defibrillator to jumpstart your heart and give you a new life! A life where there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1.
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Judgment is coming for all who have chosen the same path Ahab and Jezebel chose. It might not be in your lifetime. Perhaps God will spare you seeing the judgment as He did Ahab. He’s already done all that is needed to spare you being the object of His judgment, but you have to accept the gift.

We live in a world where justice seems as scarce and anachronistic as 8-track tapes. But we serve a God who can bring together people who are not followers of him to provide justice and blessing to a believer.

At the opening of this chapter, the evil king of Israel, Jehoram, is consulting with the greedy and self-motivated former servant of Elisha, Gehazi. Jehoram is hoping for some juicy stories about Gehazi’s master and the wonders Elisha has done. Notice that neither the king nor Gehazi acknowledge the One who performed the miracles, which reveals that neither of them were interested in praising God or giving Him glory for these miracles. Yet God will still use them to bring glory to himself.

Into the scene enters the Shunammite woman who had provided for Elisha, who had been blessed with a son, and then seen the prophet raise her son from death. Imagine if she had arrived a month earlier or later. Imagine if she had simply pleaded her case at some other time, explaining they fled the country due to the famine and are now returning and want their land and possessions back. It seems unlikely that Jehoram would have acted on her behalf, given his character, except that she provided something he was interested in at that moment — a story about the miracles of Elisha.

God is able to choreograph even the actions of unbelievers to provide for his children. While Jehoram and Gehazi were simply pursuing their own interests, God orchestrated the conversation so that the woman could enter at just the right moment to corroborate Gehazi’s story, and then plead her case to a more favorably-inclined Jehoram.

There are still so many questions about this scene. Why was the woman appearing before the king, yet there is no mention of her husband? In the time period and culture, that seems unusually bold. The text says, “she and her family” went away, but it only says, “at the end of seven years she came back.” Had her husband and son died? Given the age of her husband when her son was born, that seems likely. Did her son remain in the land of the Philistines? Without a husband or a son, she would be destitute without the possessions they had abandoned when they left to escape the famine.

The Shunammite woman had seen God do unbelievable things. God had given her a son when her husband was very old. God had brought that son back to life when he died suddenly. God had warned her of the coming famine and saved her through it. These past experiences gave her the boldness to expect God to do great things for her again.

To move the heart of a pagan king to provide justice.
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Perhaps that was the greatest miracle she experienced.

The subtitle for this chapter could be “The High Cost of Doubting God.” There are lots of examples of people in the Bible who didn’t immediately believe that God would do the impossible thing He had promised. From Sarah, to Moses, who mirrored the response of the father in Mark 9:23-25: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”

We need to cry out the same way. But the first step is in recognizing that seed of unbelief. Where has God made a promise that you are doubting? Is it that He will provide for all your needs? Is it that He will work all things out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, that we might be conformed to the image of His Son? Is it that He loves us and our sins really, truly are put away as far as the East is from the West? Is it that He will return with the shout of an archangel and we shall be caught up to meet with Him in the air? Is it that we shall worship around His throne with every tribe and every tongue in beautiful diversity yet perfect harmony?

Lift those doubting thoughts before Him and cry, “LORD, HELP MY UNBELIEF!”

Because the cost of unbelief is high. The cost of doubting His provision is lack of faith enough to give generously. It denies us the opportunity to partner with God in the work that He wants to do through us because “we can’t afford it.” Yet, whose resources are they? And doesn’t He own it ALL? So if He’s calling you to give, GIVE. Trust that He will meet your needs.

The cost of doubting that He is working for your good (which will also be for HIS GLORY) is that our testimony before unbelievers is damaged. If we can’t catch a glimpse of some purpose in the pain God may be allowing in our lives, how can we proclaim His greatness to those watching so closely to see how we will weather this trial? Cry out, “Lord, I don’t see it! Open my eyes!”

If we doubt that our sins are really done away with, we will be constantly at war with ourselves. Trying, oh, trying so very hard to overcome sin because we believe that each time we fail, we are separated again from God. That we must repent and try harder to work our way back into God’s grace. But that is no grace at all! That is all works! Instead, when we believe deeply in God’s Word that our sin is forever washed away by Christ’s sacrifice, we live in peaceful joy, in the rest Jesus promised, in the knowledge that nothing we have done will make Him love us any less, and nothing we can do will make Him love us any more.
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The officer who heard the promise of God to provide abundantly for the people of Samaria who’d been under siege doubted God’s ability, even with the abundance of heaven, to provide. Because he doubted, he didn’t experience that abundance. What am I missing out on today because of my doubts?

This chapter has a special place in my heart, because the account of God opening Elisha’s servant’s eyes to see the army of God inspired the climax of my first novel. This scene portrays the miracle God does in each of us when He opens our eyes to how He is at work all around us. At the moment when we are most overwhelmed, when it looks like we are surrounded, when circumstances threaten to squash any hope of success, this lesson tells us that we are never alone. Not just in the “Jesus is by my side” sort of way, which of course is more powerful than any army, but God has his angelic army always on duty in the lives of His people.


Sometimes these angels appear in the guise of other believers, praying with us, encouraging us, meeting our needs, and calling us to account when we falter. Other times, unseen warriors halt a car before it strikes, send needed resources at the eleventh hour, or rescue from certain disaster. Reading this account again reminds me to trust God even when I don’t see His army. It inspires me, as it did the heroine of my story, to stand boldly, knowing God has my back. He not only has my back, but His army goes before me preparing the way for the plans God has for me.

They delay my departure to avoid an accident. They arrange circumstances so that my daughters and I are not in the path of a tornado. They cause the tornado to literally hop over our home, destroying the home across the street (which was empty) and eight trees in our backyard, but leaving my husband and sons unharmed.

But what about the times when they don’t? What about the family that lost three children when a tree fell on their mobile home that day? Where were their guardian angels? Where were mine the day we were broad-sided by a Jaguar running a red light? Were they running late that day? Where were the angels at the high school in Parkland, Florida?

I don’t have all the answers for why tragedies happen. But I know from the testimony of God’s Word and my own life that God cares about the details of our lives, and He cares about our pain. I know that He sees the end from the beginning, and He allows tragedy only when it serves His eternal purposes. He views our lives on earth from the perspective of eternity and they are a mist, even the longest living among us today will one day pass away and their life will have been no more than a split second compared to eternity. From such a perspective even a life of constant, torturous pain will seem like only a momentary twinge compared to the glory of eternity.

When I’m tempted to wonder where my angels were, I measure God’s love by the cross, where He allowed the greatest injustice, the most horrific pain, the most tragic loss to befall His beloved and Only Son. Why? Why would He do that?

He allowed that because it was the only way for me and you to spend eternity with Him, for us to have salvation. Looking at the cross, I am confident that there is nothing in your life for which God does not have an eternal reason. There is nothing that we experience on earth that in heaven will not be deemed worth the price paid. There is no loss so great that it overshadows the gift of God.
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May God open your eyes today to see His army all around you.