Are You Doing Evil?

I was doing my daily Bible reading this morning and came across the story of Rehoboam, Solomon's son. The interesting thing that stood out to me was verse 14; "He (Rehoboam) did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord." "He did evil..." jumped off the page at me like 3D and I stopped long enough to write it down on a piece of paper.

In the title today I asked the question, "Are you doing evil?" I'm sure that the answer most of us would give would be, "No." But in light of what I read this morning I might have to reevaluate my answer. The Amplified version of verse 14 states; "And he did evil because he did not set his heart to seek (inquire of, yearn for) the Lord with all his desire." Rehoboam did evil because he did not inquire of the Lord. Well now, that makes me wonder about myself, do I inquire of or yearn for the Lord? Not always, no.

When we think of evil, we think of people stealing, killing or destroying things. And that is very true, that is very evil indeed. But even as evil as that is, it seems here in this Scripture that not seeking the Lord is also evil. I'll be honest here, there are times when I get ready to lay my head on my pillow at night and I realize that I have not included the Lord in one thing all day. That makes me an evil person right there according to this Scripture, and that is something that I do not like at all.

Why is it do you wonder that God thinks it is evil? Possibly because when we don't seek Him we end up doing what seems right in our own eyes, and that very rarely is the right course of action. He did tell us in Isaiah 55:9 that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours after all. I think it is because He desires relationship with us so much that it is hurts God when we don't include Him.

Just like those of you who have children, we always want the best for our kids don't we? Does it hurt when they do something without seeking counsel from you and things go bad for them? I know that the hardest thing that I've ever done as a parent is to sit back and watch one of them make a mistake that I could have helped them prevent. That is what I think God is feeling when we don't include Him in our day too.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to try and do better at not doing evil. Father God, forgive me where I've missed it in this area, and Holy Spirit remind me please when I'm out there just trying to do things on my own. In Jesus Name, amen.