2 Chronicles 34:1-7

I recently talked with my Sunday School class about Josiah. He was the same age as some of them when he became king (1). There are lots of things we could say in qualifying that, but, again, we should not miss the point that God calls and uses children. Especially in revivals/outpourings of the Spirit, the young have regularly been blessed and used by God.

It is significant to note which father he followed (2). Thankfully it wasn’t Amon! When we are told that he walked in the ways of his father David… we know that we can expect great things from this young man. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left. (He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to the left or right. The Message.)It is wonderful to see a steadfast spirit in a young person, and then years later to find it is still there in the fully formed adult. Just a word of warning: when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD it is not always perceived as right in the eyes of men. There can be a clash.

When he had been king for eight years – he was still only a teenager – he began to seek the God of David his ancestor. The Message. How that should encourage those of us who work with teenagers. He must have been 16 years old, and he got really fired up. I know how my own heart burned at that age. At 16 I preached my first sermon, and sensed God’s call to ministry upon my life.

Seeking God is not just about your prayer life. That’s a big and important part of it. But when you seek God, your whole life is involved. Your morals and values are in the mix. To seek God is to pursue holiness. Josiah went after it with all his heart and soul. It wasn’t just a personal thing, but a national crusade (3b-7). May God give us more political leaders of the calibre of Josiah. He wanted to see his nation spiritually and morally renewed, and he put himself on the line to see it happen. He scrubbed the place clean, Judah and Jerusalem, clean inside and out. The clean-up campaign ranged outward to the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and the surrounding neighbourhoods – as far north as Naphtali. Throughout Israel he demolished the altars and Asherah groves, pulverized the god and goddess figures, chopped up the neighbourhood shrines into firewood. With Israel once more intact, he returned to Jerusalem. The Message. He did a thorough job of sorting things out. For Josiah, seeking God was a serious business, as it should be for us all. Truly seeking God will mean that you get a sight of things that are wrong, and you will determine to set them right in His strength.

Prayer: Lord we bring to you our leaders. We thank you for them, and we ask that their priority will be to please you and not the popular vote. Give us men and women with moral backbone to lead our nation in ways that are right and just. Give them wisdom, courage and strength for the onerous tasks they face day after day.