Your Life in the Chronicles of Women

I have been reading the Bible through and am nearing the end of the chronicles of the kings. I have whiplash.

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord.

Jehoram did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Ahaziah did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Amaziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Ahaz did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Each king is described as having done evil or having done right, and this was because he abolished idolatry and promoted worship of God in the temple or he promoted idolatry and ransacked the temple.

Would it not be fascinating to be able to download to your kindle The Chronicles of Women?

If we traced your family line, and your mother and her mother and her mother before her were listed, along with a description of how each woman’s life appeared in the eyes in the Lord, how would it read?

Would it describe your grandmother’s idols and how she valued this or that above God or vice versa?

Would it describe your mother’s single-minded love of Christ above anything else or vice versa?

And what about you?

This year God revealed to me a few idols in my life. One was feeling like I absolutely could not live without satellite television. Finally, I did what was right in the eyes of God and called DirecTV to cancel. This idol of mine needed to be torn down.

Another idol in my life was the obsession to publish a book. If only I could publish a book, then I would really be somebody. So a book contract dangled in front of me, and I turned it down. This forced me to declare my love for God and my service to him as more important than my personal success in the writing world.

Another idol was counting numbers, looking to see how many people were reading my blog and how many people were following me on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest. I was hungry for this approval from others instead of being hungry for the approval of God alone. So I have stopped looking at numbers. An idol torn down.

I pray my children will say of me that I love nothing more than God.

What idolatry lurks in your culture? Are you tempted to love your own children or your husband or your boyfriend more than God? Are you tempted to value your house or clothes or body image more than you value Christ? Do you invest in your job but invest nothing in your relationship with God?

Doing evil.

Doing good and right.

God sees our lives in one of these two categories, and it is defined by whether we “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV) or whether we love something else more.

Will following generations cringe or celebrate when they read our stories in the chronicles of women?