Failure to Land

 On   February1, 2003, NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia  broke  apart while returning to Earth from a 16-day science mission in orbit. Kalpana Shukla, an Indian origin astronaut, was one of the astronauts killed. What a deep loss for their families and for the world. King Asa in 2 Chron 14-16 has some similarities to this story. He served the Lord successfully for 36 years of his reign but backslide in the last 3 years. He died without repentance. He almost made it but then crashed before the final landing. We cannot judge whether he is in heaven or hell. I will leave that to the theoligians to argue. What I was curious is WHAT HAPPENED? You weathered so many storms but failed to reach the harbour? Three things i saw why he failed to land successfully… 

1. He failed the blessing Test

King Asa sought the Lord when King Zerah the Cushite attacked him and God delivered him. But after 36 years of prosperity and peace somehow his heart turned cold. Many people cry to God in trouble. They pass the trouble test but when everything is ok and they are blessed they backslide. Historically the church is the strongest in persecution than in prosperity.We need to make extra effort to seek the Lord in times of prosperity, we are in a slippery slope friends. 

2. He had short term memory of God’s Goodness

He seemingly forgot God’s goodness after so many years of being blessed. In fact the prophet Hanai reminds him of all that God did for him in 2 Chron 16, but he puts him in prison. Ps 103 exhorts us to Bless the Lord and DO NOT FORGET HIS BLESSINGS. We need to take extra effort not to forget God’s blessings. In fact name them one by one, count them one by one and give God the Glory.It’s easy to complain and murmur and forget his blessings.  

3. He took a small deviation (but never turned back from it)

One man of God asked a question how far is heaven from hell? The answer suprised me – “ONE DEGREE”. If you take a degree deviation from your goal and keep going that direction you can end up in a different destination. If your destination is the moon and you start a few degrees of the goal to start with you may not end up in the moon.Small foxes spoil the wine. Small sins, small attitude problems can spoil our goal. Watch out for those small foxes. Repent and get back when you made a deviation from God’s Word. 

Stand strong in service to the Lord. 

 Biju