Dinner Time Christianity

Dinner Time Christianity

Pathway

“Do you have a dinner-time Christianity?”  It might come as a surprise, but dinner time is not always a joyful experience at my house.  As some of you know, I have three children, and, in response to the food that is on their plates, I have witnessed a potpourri of negative reactions: whining, complaining, crying, weeping, yelling, and the ever-popular “whole body going limp and collapsing to the floor.”  While there are a multitude of voiced complaints, a majority basically fall into one of three categories:

1.  “I’m just a little kid.”

2.  “There’s too much on my plate.”

3.  “My family is messed up.”

The Chronicler provides the following summary of the life of King Josiah: “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (II Chron. 34:2).  These words of commendation might astound us, especially when we consider that Josiah is only eight years old when he begins to reign as king.  Adding to the amazement is the fact that Josiah, at about the same time as all of this, loses his father Amon when Amon is murdered at the all-too-young age of 24.

Once again, I ask, “Do you have a dinner-time Christianity?”  When challenged to be more faithful or more devoted to the Lord, do your excuses sound like those from immature and ungrateful children at the supper table?  “I’m just a little kid,” you say.  Josiah responds, “I was only eight years old.”  “There’s too much on my plate,” you say.  “Work, school, sports, family, friends, youth group, committees, and so many other things.”  Josiah replies, “Too much on your plate?  Try being king.”  “My family is messed up,” you say.  “My parents are separated.  My dad works long hours and never tells me he loves me.  My siblings are mean to me, and they want nothing to do with me.”  Josiah counters, “A messed up family?  I bet my messed up family can beat yours.  My wicked father was murdered.”

After providing these words of recognition for the king, the writer then appears to highlight the reason for Josiah’s faithful life.  He continues, “(Josiah) did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, for (note that word) in the eighth year of his reign (at the age of sixteen), while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father” (II Chron. 34:3, comments added in parentheses).  The insinuation is that the reason for Josiah’s exemplary faithfulness is that Josiah actively begins to pursue God while he is still young.  In the same way, I especially urge those of you who are still children – sixteen years old just like Josiah or possibly younger – to begin now to earnestly seek the Lord.  There are seemingly countless reasons why this is important now: before the anxieties and pressures of adulthood, before you are drowning in the sea of addiction, before you are suffocating from a life of guilt and shame, before your mind is overloaded with every worldly philosophy out there, or before your heart is diamond-hard from continually choosing your own path over the Lord’s.  Before all of this and many other things in this life, choose to begin now, while you are still young, to seek God.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Isa. 55:6).

Finally, it is noteworthy that the Chronicler gives only King Josiah these unique words of honor: “He did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (II Chron. 34:2b).  However, the tragedy is that this is God’s expectation of every king, as expressed long before the monarchy’s establishment in Deuteronomy 17:20 – “…that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left.”  One might naturally ask, “Well, how is a king going to be able to do this?”  The Lord provides the answer: “(The king) shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life…” (Deut. 17:18b-19a).  In other words, the king remains “on the right track” through intensely and daily devoting himself to the Word of the Lord.  Therefore, may this royal example motivate and challenge us to similarly commit our lives to reading and following God’s Word today.