Seventh-day Adventist® Church

It's funny how we can get misled by our own perceptions about ourselves.

The Olympic Torch took the ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland today. According to the legend, there is another route, a "path", from Northern Ireland to Scotland. Giant's Causeway, on the Antrim coast, is a volcanic phenomena, where basalt lava cooled into columns, mainly hexagonal in shape. This volcanic activity can be traced underwater to the Scottish Isle of Staffa. Thereby creating a link, a path, a causeway, between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The legend that accompanies the World Heritage Site has variations, but is basically about an Irish warrior, Finn McCool, who sought to fight his Scottish counterpart, Benandonner. In realising Benandonner was bigger than he, Finn and his wife made out that Finn was only the baby child of "Finn", who was not home from the field yet. Fearing this was such a big "baby" and therefore the father must be huge, Benandonner left and returned to Scotland, ripping up the causeway as he went to prevent Finn from following. Benandonner thought he was not big enough to fight the perceived Finn.

King Asa of Israel was a little like that too. He was told by a prophet that, "The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you." ((2 Chronicles 15:2)).

Asa brought some stability and peace to the country, and people from surrounding countries moved there because they could see that "the Lord God was with him." Asa assembled his people in Jerusalem, and "they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul." v.12. "They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them." v.15.

But something happened to Asa's perception about himself. He started to rely on his abilities and skills in governance. To prevent Judah from attacking Israel from the north, Asa gave the silver and gold from the temple and the treasury to the king of Aram, who then battled against Israel. This took the heat off Asa.

What Asa did showed he had relied on himself and another king, rather than relying on God. When he relied on God in the past, he had won battles, even when he was outnumbered. The next message from God given to Asa was that because his perception was that he had no need of God, from now on he would be constantly at war.

Unfortunately, even when Asa got a foot disease late in life, he only sought help from doctors, and still did not seek God for help.

We can look at situations and think we can not deal with them. So we run away and rip up the path behind us. We can look at situations and think we can deal with them, and leave God out of our equation.

Our own perceptions can mislead us. While Asa sought God wholeheartedly, things went well. It was when Asa thought he could now do it himself, that the problems never got resolved.

It's a shame I find myself behaving like Benandonner and Asa at times. That's when I need a reminder to seek the presence of God because I need Him. I sometimes manage that myself, but sometimes I need others to remind me.

- Pr Nathan Stickland