Wholeheartedly
Wholeheartedly. In this week’s reading, this one word virtually jumped off the page at me.
“Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. … He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly.” II Chronicles 25:1-2
Each new ruler chronicled in this book is introduced with an identity that illuminates their interaction with God. The rulers either: (i) did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight; OR (ii) did not do what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight. For me, these catchphrases serve to signal whether I will be reading with anticipation…or anxiety.
I like to think I do what is pleasing in the Lord’s sight, and I don’t want to find much in common with King Amaziah. However, I’m afraid that “not wholeheartedly” is a descriptor that met some sad resonation in my soul. My mind immediately drifted to my own wanderings and the recurring root cause of such excursions. And what is this wretched root? Here it is: a stubborn “I’ve got this” disposition in certain aspects of life.
In our culture, an “I’ve got this” attitude is viewed as positive – a kingly impersonation of confidence in our control for a desired outcome. My social life, my job and my finances, my family relationships, my … – “I’ve got this.” Really? I have even heard this phrase used in relation to the current pandemic! Yet, clearly “I” do not have this. Do you?!
Now, let us not dwell here in the negative, flogging prideful thinking. Rather, let us rest in this knowledge: In everycircumstance, the One who “has got this” is the Lord God Almighty!
Consider this week: Do you have “not wholeheartedly” areas of your relationship with God? I encourage you to aggressively identify obstacles between you and your Heavenly Father, and proclaim – with humble and submissive confidence – that “God has got this!” One of my favorite, classic hymns, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Robert Robinson, 1758), captures this trusting, “give-it-up” sentiment well:
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
Amen!