2 Chronicles 24.17-18 17 After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid
homage to the king, and he listened to them. 18 They abandoned the temple of
the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols.
Jehoiada, the priest, must have been a powerful and influential
person in those days, he stood up to a treacherous queen and saved the kingdom
from ruin under her desires and preference of leadership. He also saved Joash,
the prince from being murdered at a very young age. Jehoiada mentored Joash and
he went on to be king and reigned in Judah forty years.
But something happened: Joash rejected all he’d learned
under the guiding life of Jehoiada. Joash, when the old priest died, turned
from being a good and wise king, to being a foolish and bad king: what
happened? Joash in the end, appeared unteachable.
I suppose we could speculate, but it appears that after
all Jehoiada had done for Joash, that Joash never really made the connection of
who he was and why God lifted him up to be king. Perhaps he felt he really wasn’t a
king and Jehoiada was just using him as a puppet. Perhaps he got used to being
the king with Jehoiada’s guidance but his perks, pride, and arrogance got the
better of him once the old man was dead. Joash is, in my mind, a strange case study
of one who apparently had it so good, and it turned out so bad: in the end his
own officials conspired against him, and assassinated him.
This I do know: zeal for the Lord isn’t transferable; one
either has it or one doesn’t. Too often we find the offspring trying to carry
on the zeal of their elders for appearances, but it really isn’t theirs to
begin with – they’re riding on the coattails of their parents or ancestors.
Joash apparently did what he needed to do when he needed to do it, but it
caught up with him in the end and he died despised.
The lesson for me: is to be me. The lesson for me is to
know God on my own and not through someone else. The lesson for me is accept
who I am and deal with it according to my own relationship with the Lord. I can
no longer live to fool people – who cares? I can no longer live to please
people – I can’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t, or won’t love people and try to
help when and where I can, but I can only do that through the grace and
presence of God in my life on a daily basis. Mentors are good but I can’t live
out my relationship with God through them – I must live it on my own.
Joash is a sad story to me. Joash’s life is a picture I’ve
seen often in my days upon the earth; especially in the lives of the children
of public leaders, pastors, and people of influence. The pressure to perform is
enormous and the difficulty in doing so is worse: I am not my dad, so quit trying to make me into Him! I think poor
Joash never go to be himself until he was away from the influence of his mentor
and when that happened, years and years of built up resentment came to the
surface and tragically he came to an end.
Lord, may I learn
lessons from Joash and Jehoiada, that the mentor is to allow the mentored to
make mistakes and gently guide him along. The mentored needs to stand on his
own two feet and the mentor needs to allow that to happen no matter how painful
to watch. Help me to be wise in my administering of influence and help me to
remember that apart from You whatever help I feel the need to give will
accomplish nothing that I thought it would – amen.
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