Know when to bend...

But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What quarrel is there between you and me, O king of Judah? Is is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God told to to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you.” -2 Chron. 35:21

Pride sucks most of the time. As you can see here Josiah was pretty prideful to go up against Neco. Even though he was warned that God was with Neco, Josiah went up against him anyway. I have no idea what Josiah was exactly thinking, but can kind of see what he could be thinking. You see there was war during this time and the Neco, the Egyptian King was asking for free passage, to make war against Babylon, now not too sure why Josiah just didn’t allow it, but for what ever reason he opposed to it. The commentaries say that either possibly he had an alliance with Babylon or he wanted to assert the independence of Judah. For both reasons, he should not have done it. When you oppose God you are just asking for trouble. The key is to know when to bend. Know when to get out of the way and just let God do the work. It is a senseless death Josiah experienced. But he did oppose God, because he felt he was right.

As I look at this I think of the valuable lesson we can learn from Josiah. Know when to bend. Pick your battles, and if God is against you, get out of the way. I can remember I job I had, though it was a great job, the supervisor that was over me did something extremely stupid and blamed me for the error. I pushed back really hard. Though I should have just let the issue go, I really wanted to be right. Well, let’s just say, yes I was right, but I am no longer at that job and I burned a bridge while I was there. In fact I am black listed from this company. That was time in my life where maybe I should have backed off. The older I get though the harder it is to do. But the lesson here from Josiah is to know when to bend, or else God will bend you instead. That is a tough lesson to learn, just ask Josiah, wait, you can’t because he died before he could live to tell.

Lord, help me to know when to bend.

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