What to do when others get the grace we hope for?
2 Kings 14:1-29
The funny thing about God’s undeserved grace is that we revel in it when we receive it but can feel resentful when others get it whose behaviour is less than ideal. I remember catching myself in this dynamic once when a friend of mine told me about a young Christian woman who earlier rebelled against her strict upbringing, moved in with her non-Christian boyfriend and drifted away from her commitment to God. Eventually, however, the relationship with the boyfriend broke up, she returned to the Lord and got married to a Christian. At the time, I was still single with not even the hope of someone to marry. Feelings of resentment rose to the surface unbidden, and I could not help asking God, ‘Why Lord? Why did You give her this gift when she hasn’t even been faithful to You? And what about me?’. While it was a passing thought that did not last, it struck me how ingrained the reward-for-merit approach is in our thinking. Yet the point of grace is that it is undeserved and often resists explanation.
Amaziah’s good reign and checkered history
We see something of this in the juxtapositions of Israel’s and Judah’s next kings. Amaziah in Judah ‘did right in the sight of the LORD’ (2 Kings 14:3), though the praise is tempered by qualifications. He was like his father Joash (v.3) whose reign had its ambiguous aspects and he failed to break the worshipping habits of the population at various shrines (2 Kings 14:4). Yet he showed himself just in the matter of dealing with his father’s assassins and not taking excessive revenge (2 Kings 14:5-6). On the other hand, his victory over Edom seems to have gone to his head so that he sought a confrontation with Israel and was soundly beaten and humiliated (2 Kings 14:8-14).[1] While he outlived Joash, Israel’s king, by fifteen years, he was assassinated like his father (2 Kings 14:19).
Jeroboam II’s evil reign and God’s undeserved mercy
Compared to Amaziah in Judah, Jeroboam II is described in entirely negative terms as someone doing evil and consistently leading Israel into sin (2 Kings 14:24). Yet politically, he was extremely successful. He restored the borders of the land to what they had been in Solomon’s time (2 Kings 14:25 cf. 1 Kings 8:65). Further, by God’s grace, Israel was freed from the foreign oppression they suffered in the previous reigns (2 Kings 14:26). Jeroboam’s 41 years was one long period of prosperity and peace. It feels unfair when Amaziah had a chequered rule for only 29 years despite the overall estimate that he was a good king (2 Kings 14:2-3). Instead of focusing on our injured sense of justice, however, we do well to acknowledge once more God’s astonishing grace. This is the Lord’s last-ditch effort to show compassion to Israel and bring them back to Himself. After the golden years of Jeroboam II, Israel will disintegrate into chaos, four of its last six kings will be assassinated, one reigning only for a month (2 Kings 15:8, 10, 13-14, 23, 25, 30)!
What to do when others get the grace we hope for
God’s ways of working through the story of Israel and Judah have remarkable parallels with how He operates even today. We cannot know why He extends grace to undeserving people, but it teaches us not to make comparisons because they are deadly. Grace is grace and it resists our rationalisations. Who can tell why God lets His faithful ones suffer and experience need at times while He shows mercy to those who care little about Him? We never see the full story in another person’s life, only a brief glimpse of it and we have no right to judge. As Jesus says in the parable of the vineyard workers, ‘Is your eye envious because I am generous?’ (Matt 20:15). None of us can boast that we deserve His grace. Sometimes testing times can grow our endurance and trust in the Lord and at other times, we may well be the recipients of God’s unmerited grace that others envy! God knows what He is doing and we must trust His wisdom. Our best approach is to live with gratitude for what we have received and resist comparisons.
[1] The conversation between the king of Judah and of Israel, including the parable about the cedar and the thorn bush (2 Kings 14:8-10), is typical of ancient political exchanges in the region. The story clearly illustrates Israel’s point that Judah (the thorn bush) is negligible and no match for Israel (the cedar). It is not clear who the wild beast is, possibly Aram or perhaps Assyria further north that was gradually gaining power.
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