SDfAOWOP: The Child

Day Thirty

I King 14:12-13

Arise, therefore, go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something pleasing to The Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.

The Lord sees everything there is to see. The inmost parts of the earth, the smallest insect that flits and starts and dies in a day, the hidden places of the heart. We judge by the expression of a face, the circumstances that surround us, and most of all by how we feel at any particular moment. We strive and work to get what we want, to survive, to live in the way we want to live, taking what we think we need and want. But The Lord sees and judges.

Jeroboam had erred in his calling. Given the chance to he king of Israel, in the face of God's judgment of Solomon and Rehoboam, he takes matters into his own hands and does all his heart desires. He strays, as all of us do, into evil and sin and wickedness, and the penalty of that sin is death, death for his whole house. No one will go in peace to the grave.

Save one, a child. A child in whom The Lord find “something pleasing”. What is it that he finds? Why the saving of a single child? Another child, much later, will someday come and save. He will be the perfect pleasing sacrifice in whom we may be found pleasing. He alone will rescue us and save us from the sorrow and judgement of Sheol.