Insurance is a wonderful thing. I just got my Jeep back from the bodyshop after a fender bender. My auto insurance paid for most all of the repair. Along with car insurance, I have homeowner’s insurance, health insurance, savings insurance (FDIC) and life insurance.

Amaziah, king of Judah, won a smashing victory over the nation’s oppressors. When he returned to the palace, he carried back the idols of the defeated, bowed before them and worshipped. The Lord immediately dispatched a prophet with this message:

Why do you consult this people’s gods, which could not save their own people from your hand?

The prophet asked a good question—why would Amaziah worship powerless gods, and in doing so, offend the Lord who went before him?

Amaziah’s choice looks wildly foolish. Maybe he thought in slow-motion? Likely something in the look and build of those idols caught his eye, and Amaziah heard stories of the power of those gods.

I suspect Amaziah hoped to add a layer of insurance. If the Lord saves, why not a few more deities? A dream team of gods? The Lord+?

I lean that direction. Whether position or money or recognition or security, I tend to layer insurance to the Lord’s role in my life. When the Lord looks the other direction, I’ll have something solid to hold. I cannot quite trust all the way.

It’s not to the level of burning incense and praying to carved images, but I notice my lack of assurance. Why do I consult the people’s gods when the Lord has always provided? I recognize the Lord stands beyond all the added ways I insure my life anyway, so why get stuck on my insurance? Why look to create my version of the Lord+?

Only when my hope returns to the Lord do I find a solid, fully insured place to stand.

2 Chronicles 25 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Tierra Mallorca