Day 4: Humility Received, Not Achieved

When life’s circumstances and events conspire to lay us low, we may be tempted to doubt God’s goodness and justice. The test of self-humbling in these moments, as we see in King Rehoboam, is whether we arrogantly point the finger at God, or humbly evaluate our own hearts and lives, declaring — for our own souls and for anyone else in earshot — that God is righteous.

Humility Lost and Found

Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, came to the throne in seeming strength and security, but he was off his spiritual guard, and soon went soft. “When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him” (2 Chronicles 12:1).

God’s gracious humbling then came when Shishak king of Egypt “took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 12:4). This is no small, or distant, danger. It is humbling, to say the least, to have a foreign army march on your capital. The newfound threat to Jerusalem, and his own life, awakened Rehoboam to his folly, and God sent the prophet Shemaiah to make God’s purpose plain. 

In this instance, the king and his counselors “humbled themselves” by declaring God to be in the right, and themselves to be in the wrong. 

Perhaps it bears asking today how many of us would have seen God’s righteous hand in the invasion of a foreign army. Would we not seek to explain it mainly, if not exclusively, in human terms? Would we have the faith to recall that God stands directly or indirectly behind all that comes to pass? The question is not whether he is aware, and involved, and doing something for his glory and his people in the invasion of a foreign army, or in anything that comes to pass. The question is not whether but what. He is at work. Precisely what he is doing is often hidden from our eyes, at least at first, but the eyes of faith are not content with mere human explanations and causes, real and significant as they are. In faith, we want to ask—not to make pronouncements for others but for ourselves—how might God be humbling me in this frowning providence?

So, first, God acted to humble Rehoboam and his kingdom. Then, in his humbling, the king was presented with the moment of decision, as we are: Will I humble myself before God, or resist in pride? Will I welcome his severe awakening, or kick against this kindness?