Devotion for Today "Go With the Flow?" I Kings 1:17-21

Devotion for Today  “Go With the Flow?”  I Kings 1:17-21

          

 Have you ever been told, “Just go with the flow?”  Similar phrases, such as “just ride with it,” “just go along,” and “don’t rock the boat” suggest that flexibility is required of those to whom the phrase is addressed whenever something unplanned or unexpected is imposed upon the situation.  Not to go with the flow means that a very difficult situation should be expected.  Many times flexibility is required if we all want to get along with others.  It may be a small price to pay to keep their  good will.  However, there are times when “going with the flow” is not only inappropriate, but wrong or sinful.  If someone, for example, is being mistreated and we are too afraid to say something about it for fear that we might become the subject of abuse- this is sinful.  If we fail to speak up when injustice is going on, going with the flow will only aggravate the injustice and make us the cause of it.  If we don’t want to makes waves when there is information that is important for us to share, but withhold it because we don’t want any one to be embarrassed or upset that we shared it; then we unwittingly participate in the undesirable outcome.  Our spiritual leadership is required in situations where we would prefer to be silent, and to speak up when others pressure us “to go with the flow.”

 

We see this situation from the outset of this in First Book of the Kings.  David, the mighty king of Israel, is very feeble and frail in the first chapter.  Some would say that dementia or some other debilitating condition has overcome him.  It meets him early in life because many of his contemporaries are still living and serving.  At age seventy, the years of battle, weariness in administration, and court intrigues have not been good to David.  A young concubine has been given to David to help keep him warm.  One of David’s sons by his wife Haggith, Adonijah, sees an opportunity to exploit his father’s feeble condition and tries to assume the throne.   David either feels powerless to do anything about it, or a lapse has caused him not to be aware of it.  Not even David’s loyal supporters like Zadok the priest and the prophet Nathan seem to be able to stop it.  It would have been easier to allow Adonijah to become king rather than to stand up to it and correct it.

 

However, David’s wife Bathsheba first approaches Nathan the prophet and then approaches her husband the king and demands that they do the right thing. “15 So Bathsheba went into the chamber to the king. (Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was serving the king.) 16 And Bathsheba bowed and did homage to the king. Then the king said, “What is your wish?”17 Then she said to him, “My lord,  you swore by the LORD your God to your maidservant, saying, ‘Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne.’ 18 So now, look! Adonijah has become king; and now, my lord the king, you do not know about it.  (I Kings 1:15-18 NKJV).

 

To stand up and be counted is often a fearful thing, especially when everyone else is jumping on another bandwagon.  But the cost of not doing what would please God is much higher than any amount of embarrassment or pressure to do what others want us to do.  Are you facing such pressure today?  Are you pressured to keep quiet and to “go with the flow?”  It may seem like a small stream, but that stream may well rise over your head in a swift current to drown you.  You have the right, as well as the responsibility, not to allow this to happen.  You also have God on your side. 

Have a blessed day!

 

Rev. Jeffery C. Russell
Salem Baptist Church
Elizabeth City, NC
jefferyrussell@earthlink.net

jcrussell@liberty.edu

 

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