High places

(photo of the view from the top of the hill on the little piece of land we bought)

It's been a busy and productive week. The house is back on the market again, and I feel a lot better about it this time. I have gotten a little behind on my daily Bible reading, but only about six days. I'm determined to read through the whole book this year, and ingrain the habit of daily reading and fellowship deep in me...so I keep plowing forward, determined to catch-up. I'm using a daily Bible with a reading from the Old and New Testaments, one from Psalms, and one from Proverbs every day. Right now I'm in 2Kings. There's one phrase that keeps coming up again and again in recounting the lives of the good kings of Israel of Judah and it goes something like this: ______(enter king's name) did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done, except that the high places were not removed. The "high places" were hills and mountain tops where the people would go and sacrifice and worship God, and sometimes other gods too. But God had specifically told them not to do this (Deut 12:13-14 & Joshua 22). The people were not to offer God just any sort of worship and sacrifices, but instead submit to God's requests from them. And it started me wondering. What are my high places? What are things I do simply because they are comfortable and familiar, because my "fathers" did it too. Where are the places in my life I never considered changing...but God's wants me to change, so the generation after me won't make the same mistakes simply because I did. Or even more frightening than that, the high places were often like a "gate-way-sin" which lead to far more heinous things, like human sacrifice in future generations. I pray He helps me to find my high places!

"And he (Hezekiah) did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the LORD God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him, but kept His commandments..."

2Kings 18: 3-6