(Thank you Miki Clouser for our devotional this week!)

I have been listening through the Bible in a year, but somewhere around June I got off track and was struggling to catch up. I attended a birthday party in West Virginia early in July, so on the 400-mile drive home I planned to marathon it. I started listening at the end of Solomon’s reign where God sends a prophet to Jeroboam with this message, “…Solomon has forsaken me and worships Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians; and Chemosh, the god of Moab; and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. He has not followed my paths and has not done what I consider right… as his father David did.” Ouch. Epic fail for the wisest man in the world. (1 Kings 11.33) 

I then sat for HOURS, hearing “he did evil in the sight of the Lord…” over and OVER again. There were coups, assassinations, familial exterminations, and kings who were cursed by God with graphic health problems and/or deaths. Occasionally a breath of fresh air “walked like his father David” inspiring God’s mercy, but then his life’s summary stated how he “didn’t go all the way” or let some bastion of evil slide.

I drove east, listening to tales of straying kings, fickle people, and prophets warning of impending doom. Meanwhile I watched a wall of rain and wind approach from the North, obscuring everything to my left gradually as it came. It reminded me of what God said to Samuel about Israel begging for a king. “I am the one they are rejecting… they don’t want me to be their king any longer.” God told Samuel to tell His people, “You will shed bitter tears because of this king you are demanding, but the Lord will not help you.” God saw the wall of the approaching storm if Israel split their devotion between Him and a human king, but Israel waved off his warnings.

Every “King of Israel” was bad. Several “Kings of Judah” managed to “do what was right,” but their summaries still listed major flaws. Out of 40 kings after David, Hezekiah and Josiah stood alone as entirely positive summaries (2 Kings 18:5 and 23:25). God was not worthy of this dumpster fire. I think what broke me the most though were the “halfway” kings. Evil is easily condemned, but halfway decent is complicated. I grew up in a home where appearances were “godly,” but strongholds of disobedience were tucked into carefully guarded corners. Living under this “halfway syndrome” (aka hypocrisy) severely threatened my faith, so I’ve been deeply challenged not to accept myself as “halfway decent.” God deserves better. So do those I love and live with in community, because halfway devotion can harm them too.

I’m still contemplating what a summary of my life would look like and asking God to reveal any incomplete reforms or intact altars I should deal with in the meantime. No one is more worthy of my full devotion.