Definitely NOT Mother of the Year…

Once again we see 2 Chronicles reading like a bad soap opera. We are introduced to a mother of the king named Athaliah. She is not really the kind of mom who would bring orange slices to the soccer game. When her son the king is murdered we read this: 10 Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal heirs of the house of Judah. Apparently her idea of mourning the death of her son was to kill all the other possible heirs to the throne, likely including some of her own children, so she could be the queen.

Opportunity does this to some people. This is a pretty extreme example but you might have experienced or even have been the victim of someone who took advantage of an opportunity to slander you or to try to make you look bad. I can remember during the winter Olympics a number of hears ago where Tanya Harding hired someone to try to break the leg of Nancy Kerrigan so Tanya could win a gold medal. There are many stories of people who lost their jobs through the deception of someone else, when an opportunity came up. Of course not all opportunity is bad…it is often good. But it is never right to wrongfully take advantage of a situation for your own benefit. Again, our example from the Bible today is very extreme, but we all need to guard our hearts to avoid straying in ways that can be harmful to ourselves and others.