Light Lenten Reflections

Week 4

The Low Down on the High Places

I've recently been reading a series of books detailing the long and bloody history of some ancient kingdoms. The kings and their assorted family members run the gamut from somewhat good and somewhat noble to downright evil and conniving. There is intrigue, bloodshed, and a roller coaster of character development. The somewhat good people are flawed. The evil ones may appear to have their moments of goodness. Some characters are given pages of presence, others only a line or two. No, I've not been reading A Song of Fire and Ice, (those Game of Thrones books). I've been reading four biblical Old Testament books – First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, histories having, perhaps at first glance, some similarities to the Game of Thrones world. Minus the dragons, though...

The two biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel had their share of rotten kings whose atrocities and idolatries are condemned across the pages of the four above-mentioned books. Similarly, the good kings get shout-outs in the same books for their attempts to do things God's way. But in reading about king after king, I noticed a disturbing pattern even among the histories of the “good” kings. It seemed that not every, but most, “good” kings got dragged down by “the high places”. The pattern I was seeing read something like this:

“(Put 'good' king's name here) walked in all the ways of (previous 'good' king, often his father). He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. (But; Nevertheless) the high places were not taken away.”

This scenario occurs again and again, in the histories of Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham... “But the high places were not taken away...”

So, what's the deal with the “high places”? Most of these good kings tore down the idolatrous shrines, places where the people worshiped pagan gods, but why not the high places? Why were they different and why were they such a problem? Initially, before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, there was no central place for the people to worship God, so they thought it a good idea to worship Him somewhere. And high places, often geographically and symbolically closer to heaven, seemed to make sense as do-it-yourself worship venues. And sincere worship probably did occur at times in these high places, so they were tolerated. But after the temple was built, these high places remained, now more often than not, tainted with idol worship.

Why leave standing a place which has out-lived its original purpose, is a snare to people's spiritual lives, and is a magnet for heathen idolatry? One has only to look as far as human nature for some likely answers. We humans easily tolerate that which is overly familiar to us even if it has negative consequences. Familiar things have a tendency to become invisible to us. I have ceased to see those boxes of old photographs I put in the corner of the bedroom with the intention of sorting a year ago. They have now become invisible to me, that is, until I trip over them trying to navigate the room with the lights off. We humans are also good at tolerating compromise. Something once sort of good can't be all bad now that it's sort of bad, so we let it stay in our lives. Like those cheap but oh so stylish shoes that felt tolerably comfortable when I first bought them, but don't any longer, and yet here they are, still on my feet, still looking oh so stylish. Lastly, we humans tend to allow things to stay in our lives simply because we don't want to make the effort to remove them. Getting rid of long-standing stuff takes both physical and emotional energy. My basement contains items I no longer need or want, but have I cleaned it out? No, that would take time and energy and emotional effort I don't feel like expending at the moment, though I expect I will regret my present lack of action if I ever decide to sell the house.

“High places” in our lives have potentially much more serious consequences than unsorted photos, worn out shoes and cluttered basements. We may see ourselves walking with God like “good” kings, but like those kings, we allow areas of our lives to sidetrack and distract us and those around us from God's best for us. These distractions may be behaviors as innocuous as an occasional racy TV show or as devastating as a porn habit. They may be internal mindsets ranging from silently but habitually judging others to harboring long-standing bitterness or unforgiveness toward someone. These all pull us down and away from the whole-hearted following of the path God has called us to. And there is nothing “high” about that...

Something to Ponder:

Are there spiritual “high places” in your life, things that have become invisible to you, places of tolerable compromise, areas you don't want to expend the energy to deal with that have the potential to pull you off track in your walk with God? How would your life, your relationship with God be different if you were to “tear down” one of those high places?

Something to Pray:

Ask God to make you more aware of the negative spiritual consequences of your easily ignored “high places”. Grab a Bible or go to BibleGateway.com. Read 2 Kings 18:1-8. Hezekiah is one of the kings who did tear down the high places. Ask God to be the Foreman on your demolition team for any high place in your life He wants you to deal with. Ask Him to show you how and give you the strength to tear it down. Ask Him also for the attributes of Hezekiah – to do right in the eyes of the Lord, to trust in the Lord, to hold fast to Him, to not depart from following Him.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

- Bryant H. McGill