Meng's Loft

The god of I

I read through the books of Kings and Chronicles in one sitting sometime last year.   Each king was given an introduction of who his father was, how long he reigned on the throne and whether or not he was a king who did “evil in the eyes of the Lord” or otherwise.

Most kings did “evil in the eyes of the Lord” while only a handful such as King Hezekiah “pleases the Lord”.  King Hezekiah was given such an introduction in 2 Kings 18:1-7.

¹ In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. ² He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. ³ He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. ⁴ He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

⁵ Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. ⁶ He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses. ⁷ And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

Apart from King Ahab and King Omri who were very beastly and animastic in their rule, the other kings’ won the tag “evil in the eyes of the Lord” simply because they worshipped pagan gods.  They offered burned offerings to these idols, and “exalted” these idols to high places.  These acts displeases God Jehovah so much that God called them “evil”.

The definition of evil is certainly not merely the absence of good.  But the Bible has implicitly defined it as anything that has taken over the rightful place of God in our lives.  And the greatest culprit in our technologically-savvy society today is, I call him, the god of I.

Very subtly (or unsubtly), the god of I were on everyone’s minds and hearts.  Books were written to make “I” a more glorified person.  I may be unfair in my thought, but I “am not wrong”.  Even Christian preachers preached on this a lot.  Books, tapes, CDs and these feel-good preachers were making big bucks enthroning the “god of I”.

Some of these messages were camouflaged in Christian jargons, such as, “God will bless you, God will prosper you”.  Go to a mega bookshop at a mega mall somewhere, you’ll find a lot of self-improvement books.  Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading these books, but this is to show how much the society has been teaching us to look at ourselves and ourselves only.

How often do you get such books on the bestseller bookshelves?

“Dummy to making your community a better place” or,

“how to raise funds for the poor” or,

“how to improve and help everybody improve” or

“how to give way to other drivers on Malaysian road” or

“how to smile at the other Malaysian drivers”  (don’t’ think anyone can turn millionaire overnight for writing such books!)

But this is what the Bible says (in my interpretation) of evil being in abundance in the last days.  Evil, where God was dethroned.  Unjustly.  Tragically.

When God was dethroned in His rightful place in our lives, and the god of I took over, it simply means that everything we do is just to make sure that “I” is properly taken care of.  Some preachers made it sound (and it angered me a lot) that it is God’s obligation to bless us.  Again, this is a typical case of where “the god of I” was enthroned!  When we signed on to become Christians, and God signed on to “enter into fellowship” with us, He did not agree to become a slave to ensure that our lives are well and prosperous.

If that is the case, then the apostle Peter and apostle Paul and the other early Christian fathers must have been short-changed by God.  But were they short-changed at all?  They were not millionaires (and never had been as far as I am concerned).

When we fail to clinch that business deals, it does not mean that God did not fulfil His end of the obligation.  When we fail in our relationships, it does not mean that God is obliged to save it or else….

And the verses said, “Hezekiah trusted the Lord… The Lord was with him”.  When Hezekiah put his trust in God, it pleases the Lord so much that He was with him.  Where God’s presence abounds, the mountain becomes a molehill before the Lord.  Trusting the Lord is not reduced to only a mere emotional experience.  It involves risk and a lot of emotional as well as psychological energies.

Yes, I yearn to be a better person, but not at the expense of doing them all without Christ with me.  If I can have God’s presence in my business, why wouldn’t I want it?

God is God of all.  He is my God and I worship Him.  For poorer for richer, in sickness and in health, I worship Him.

And He is not obliged to prosper me financially.