Warnings From the Life of Uzziah

I'm back.  It seems when it rains it pours.  In the last few weeks, everything went down, including the computer.  Our fridge/freezer stopped cooling.  Our oven stopped heating.  The lawnmowever stopped mowing......the list seemed endless!  But, miracle of all miracles, we didn't have to get new appliances, lawnmowers or computers.  We were able to fix each one for a pretty good price, nothing was broken so badly it couldn't be repaired, so I'm grateful.

Last week, my two oldest wore black around the house for a few days.....they were back from their leadership camp and they were so depressed!  That's what camp does to people.  You go, you bond with all sorts of new people (in a very short time, I might add!), then you leave.  By the end of the week, everyone is new best friends and then you have to come home to a bossy mom and little siblings who don't care where you went....poor kids!  But all in all, they had a great week and did make new friends, learned a lot, and are psyched up about street preaching again!  So much so, that my son found himself standing on a box in Niagara Falls reading out a tract to anyone who would listen as they walked by!  I think it runs in the blood, though.  I was pretty sure I remembered my dad doing something like that from a roof of a car when he was first saved as a young man.  I asked him about it and sure enough, he did.  Got some speakers, he said, and went to the middle of town and started preaching!  So, the grandapple doesn't fall far from the grandtree, it turns out.....

This past weekend, they went again with some of the new friends they had met and walked around all day handing out tracts.  You just never know where these tracts will end  up and who will read them.  I think what is compelling our kids to do this is what compelled Wilberforce....they see that a "Manners Reformation" needs to take place.  Not the manners you typically think of, but the kind that refers to morality and behaviour.  Wilberforce saw the English society and how corrupt it was.  Not only did he want to abolish slavery, but he wanted the culture to be changed and he knew only Jesus could do that.  Our kids are starting to see how awful our society is becoming and they are starting to see it through God's eyes, how it saddens Him.  They know the only solution is Jesus and this compels them to get the Word out any way they can.

Meanwhile, we are coming to the end of our more intentional time of focused prayer.  We realized we can't stop even once the 40 days is over.  Between the two of us, we've lost 30 lbs!  So we can't go back to the way we were eating either.  We knew that before, but had slacked off big time over the winter months.  Mmmmmmm....salads....!  Here we come!  Actually salads are pretty good when they come straight from your garden.  Winter salads are going to be more of a challenge because they won't be nearly as delicious.  So, really, we're just going to stay in this mode.  It's a good place to be as we are depending on God for direction daily anyway and the discipline of eating well is always a good thing, too.

While I was specifically praying about RM, I came across this chapter in 2 Chronicles.  Chapter 26.  It talked about Uzziah and how he became king.  Immediately, when you start to read about the kings in the Old Testament, you wonder, will he be a good king or a bad king?  Uzziah was a good one, at least initially, "And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord."  I always pay attention to the good kings.  I want my husband to be a good king, too!  So what did he do that made him do right?  "He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. (26:6).  There you go, if we weren't sure before, it's pretty clear from that verse....seek God, get instruction - any king, any man, any woman, simply needs to stay in the ways of the Lord in order to be in the favour of the Lord.

Then, it breaks down Uzziah's work.  This became very interesting for me as, again, I was reading it with RM in mind.  Uzziah starts his "king work" by going out and having a war, breaking through some walls, building some cities, fighting more enemies and then getting famous!  All in a day's work!  A very busy guy.  This is truly the day in the life of my husband, too!  He's always at war in some capacity....fighting the enemy of debt, or some customer who won't pay, or weeds, or a broken machine....yes, he fights wars.  Breaks through walls, too.  He is constantly doing new things, coming up with new ideas, breaking the status quo for us.  If he isn't breaking through a wall, he's building a city or at least building a wall of protection for his family, not to mention a farm.  Our little farm is basically being built from the ground up.  Yes, the bare bones were there, but we have had to rebuild almost everything from the house to the outbuildings, to the fences.....Uzziah was busy, my husband is busy!  I was starting to see some pretty funny comparisons, but it gets even more similar to my amazement....

Then it said "Uzziah built towers".  No way.  My husband's main work right now is building towers.  Coincidence I thought.  Uzziah built them all over the place.  My husband builds weather station towers that are literally all over the place, at airports, for example, wherever they need to measure weather.  Uzziah and my husband - tower builders, who knew?

Uzziah also cut out many cisterns, "for he had large herds".  He also "had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil."  Crazy.  We may not have large herds, but he do have herds, cows, in particular.  And we have vines and fertile lands where we grow hay.  If you were to ask my husband what he loves to do, he would tell you, he loves being on the tractor - he loves the soil.  He loves what our land is producing.  We started farming so we could get a tax break, but we also wanted to eat off the land.  What has shocked us in this whole process is how much we have enjoyed doing the farming!  We didn't expect that!  Yes, it is hard work, but it is so fulfilling and satisfying and creating such hard-working kids...so, just like Uzziah, we love the soil!

Uzziah also had an "army of soldiers".  So do we - our young family, that is quickly getting older, is our army.  They are being prepared to "make war with might power".  Uzziah provided all that they would need in order to fight "army shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging."  RM is doing all that he can to prepare our kids for the war that is ahead of them once they leave the nest.  He's trying to provide them with the necessary tools and skills they'll need to take on provision for their own homes and fighting for their own families one day.  So, both men have armies and both men provide what their armies need to fight.

This was the most amusing comparison.  Uzziah was also an engineer, and, dare I say, a mechanical engineer, just like my husband.  How do I know?  He "made machines"!  No joke!  When I read that, I nearly fell over.  He made machines "to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones".  So his machines were built to make things work better and faster - isn't that the definition of an engineer?  They see a problem, slow arrows, slow stones, and they design something that will make things bigger, faster and stronger.....Hmmmmm....kind of what my husband does all day everyday.  "His fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong."  Neither RM or I are looking for him to become famous, but what is to be noticed here is that he was "marvelously helped".  Not just helped, but marvelously helped.  Cool.  It really shows that Uzziah couldn't do it on his own.  He had farmers, vinedressers, and skillful men on his team, but he also had God.  He would never have been as successful as he was without the support of those around him and, of course, his reliance on God was absolutely key.  Same with us.  We have a lot of people on our team, from our kids, to grandparents, to friends, neighbours....but the head of our team is God who marvelously helps us all the time.

I kind of wish the chapter had ended there.  It was such a happy ending, but, no, the chapter went on and included one verse that changed everything.  "But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction."  (26:16)  Why?????  Why couldn't he be happy with how his life went?  Why couldn't he just see that all he had came from the Lord?  Why does our pride always bring us down?  Big lesson there.  We read this in Scripture all the time - prides comes before a fall.  So, our prayer is that all the similarities between RM and Uzziah will end there.  We pray that if God were to ever give us success of any kind that we will take notice of the warnings and always give God the glory.  Uzziah ended up being a leper the rest of his life "because the Lord had struck him".  That is not how I want our story to end.

I have read that chapter before and never noticed all the similarities between my husband and Uzziah.  I can't help but think this time my eyes were opened to it in a different way because the Lord had something to tell me.  Needless to say, I read it to RM and we talked about it for a long time, heeding the warnings.  Scripture is just so amazing, so practical and even ironic at times as it described my husband to a "T"!  Warning received.