A Different Direction

Ready

Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and the incense altars that were above them he chopped down. The Asherah poles, the carved images, and the cast images he shattered, crushed to dust, and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. — 2 Chronicles 34:4

Set

Rick Carlisle took over as coach of the Detroit Pistons and went on to become Coach of the Year because he directed his team to the NBA Eastern Conference finals in back-to-back fifty-win seasons. Unfortunately it wasn’t good enough. Carlisle was fired because the management of the Pistons decided to go in a different direction.

King Josiah was crowned king of Judah at the ripe old age of eight, and it was this young king who tore down the altars of Baal. When Josiah came to the throne, he had a mess on his hands, a kingdom of idol worshipers, which came to him from the reigns of his father and grandfather. King Josiah decided to take Judah in a different direction than his predecessors: “In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, Josiah began to seek the God of his ancestor David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved images, and the cast images” (2 Ch 34:3).

King Josiah was devoted to following God and doing what was right, and, as a result, he crushed all the false gods and idols being worshiped in Israel, and he directed the people back to God. The first thing Josiah did was seek the Lord, and this enabled him to recognize the nation’s sin and lead the nation to repentance. Coach, seek the Lord first and foremost in your life today and ask Him to help you see and remove anything that is taking you or your team in the wrong direction.