2 CHRONICLES 33-36 - Manasseh and Josiah

Heart Issues
As I am in this stage of hoping and dreaming for my son I connect with these stories so much more. I pray that my son will walk with the Lord all of his life. It blows me away to see such amazing kings be followed up by rebellious and faithless sons. It makes me search and try to find what I can do to help my son experience the Lord and enjoy the Lord. I am beginning to understand what it is to look to the next generation and begin to get my eyes off of just what I may accomplish and look to what I can set my son up to accomplish. I want to guard against expectations of my son though, so it is such a hard balance and there is no fatherhood stories included in the chronicles. It is also amazing to me that God will still have us when we have turned to all else before seeking Him. Why does he accept our repentance after we have shown that we prefer anything but Him unless He is our last choice? He is amazingly loving and challenging to my heart as a dad. Of course, I love the story of Josiah and am challenged by his zealousness for the Lord. He truly wanted to see God exalted and lifted up. He gave of his own possessions and all of his life he sought the Lord and His word. It is great to see the power of the word as it was read before Josiah.

Notes
-Manasseh was a horrible king to begin with. He was so terrible that God let him be dragged away by his nose by the King of Assyria. God tried to get his attention through speaking to the people. There is no notation as to whether God spoke himself or used prophets. He came back to the Lord, but did not take down all of the high places and Asherah poles. The people still sacrificed to God from the high places. What does this even mean? They were not truly worshipping God for that is not the way He would be worshipped. Amon was terrible and didn’t last long. He is the only king I think I have read about who was assassinated by his own officials. It seems that people loved Amon though because he was such a terrible king and killed the officials for their assassinating him. Josiah was awesome and an inspiration to me that high school ministry is so valuable. Students can hear the word of the Lord and be cut to the heart. He renewed Judah and set it back on the course unto the Lord. Sadly it was only for his generation for the kings after him were truly wicked. Judah continued to spiral down into wickedness and were soon destroyed for it. God did spare a remnant though and brought back His people later through Cyrus.
-Jehoiachin only reigned in Jerusalem 3 months and 10 days. It almost makes you wonder how he had time to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.