2 Chronicles 11

But the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying, "Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, 'Thus says the LORD: "You shall not go up or fight against your brethren! Let every man return to his house, for this thing is from Me." ' " Therefore they obeyed the words of the LORD, and turned back from attacking Jeroboam. So Rehoboam dwelt in Jerusalem, and built cities for defense in Judah. And he built Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

(2Ch 11:2-6)

From the outside it seemed like the only thing to do. A rebellion had just split this young nation in two, and something needed to be done to fix it! The troops are rallied, the men are readied, and the march begins. BUT… The man of God shows up and has something to say. God had spoken to him and made it crystal clear, this military operation was not to go down; God was behind this split. WHAT!? Why would God do something like this? Why would he allow this to happen, and then prevent men from taking steps to fix it? If God is good, then why would he make something like this happen?

These kinds of questions confront us from time to time. We don’t understand why God has caused or allowed something to go down a certain way. We can’t figure out why He would stop us from doing something that seems so good, like it will be so beneficial spiritually. So we ask the obvious question WHY? It’s a question I used to ask my parents a lot, and the answer I got depended largely on WHY I was asking. See, there were times I was asking WHY, but they knew what I was really saying was, “I don’t like what you’re doing”. Other times I genuinely wanted to know and understand why something wasn’t good. My attitude would dictate what kind of response I would get.

Sometimes when people ask the “why do bad things happen to good people” kind of question, they are really saying, “I don’t like the way God is being God”. Other times they genuinely want to know. If we are asking this kind of question from the Lord with a pure heart, we will get an answer.

The answer to today’s question is simple… God sees the end from the beginning, and He was working on something far bigger than the nation of Israel. Ultimately everything He does is a part of His plan to REDEEM THE WORLD. In the larger scope, this seemingly BAD thing would actually be a GOOD thing. It would protect a remnant of God’s people from the ultimate apostasy of the nation… in effect it ensured that redemption remained possible.

In life, things will happen that don’t make sense. We will feel like they are the OPPOSITE of what should be going on. At these times we need to remember that God sees things we can’t and He knows things we don’t. Trust the Lord; He knows what’s best for you!