So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is righteous.” ~2 Chronicles 12:6
I usually prefer working on my own. Doing stuff without supervision or understudies. But sometimes alone doesn’t cut it. So stop and think of all the things that take two people to accomplish.
Several years ago, I went to our local rental center, where I’m on a first-name basis with most of the clerks, and rented a dethatcher for my lawn. After I had handed Mike, the guy in the garage, the yellow copy of the invoice, he pulled out the piece of equipment. A dethatcher looks like an oversized lawn mower. Once we had double-checked the paperwork, Mike pushed it to my waiting car. I opened the trunk lid, he and I stood on either side of the dethatcher, and then we lifted it into my car. With him on one side and me on the other, it was effortless. Nothing to it.
When I got home, it dawned on me that I had a serious problem. There was no way I was ever going to get this thing out of my trunk without some help. I tried to grip it in such a way that I could do it alone. I also checked to be sure my late wife wasn’t watching. She had nursed my aching back many times and wasn’t a big fan of my doing silly things like this.
It wasn’t that the dethatcher was so heavy; it was just that I couldn’t get the proper grip to leverage the thing out of my car. There was nothing I could do without some help.
Fortunately, I remembered Vince and Adam, two teenagers who lived across the street. Once I had summoned them, the thing was out of my trunk in a flash. Again, nothing to it . . . with the right kind of help.
King Solomon was dead. His son, Rehoboam, succeeded him to the throne of Israel.
Unfortunately, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, had rebelled against Solomon, twisting off a portion of the nation with him. From that point on, until 1948, the unified nation of Israel ceased to exist. Imagine this tragedy. Two men, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, took leave of their good senses and decided to go it alone. In fact, not only did they abandon each other, but they also deserted the God of their fathers.
Something that could have been so successfully accomplished with the cooperation of two men fell apart, leaving the lives of millions of people in ruins for centuries. In fact, we read a perilously sobering judgment from God Himself in this text: “You have abandoned me; therefore, I have abandoned you” (v. 5). It’s almost like God was saying to Rehoboam, “So you think you can lift this thing on your own? Go ahead. Help yourself.” These are not words you and I should ever hear.
The two men who came after Solomon decided to go their own way. Instead of helping each other with the task of leading God’s people, they let jealousy and pride cloud their minds. How foolish of them.
Don’t forget to daily and humbly secure your partnership with your heavenly Father. And don’t abandon the help God has placed around you—someone to help you do the lifting. It only makes good sense.