II Chronicles 34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father
You probably know the feeling of being in darkness. Maybe as a kid you went on a field trip to some cave where they turned the lights out and you felt like you were in complete and total darkness. Maybe like me, you like to backpack and you have been in the back country somewhere where when you turn the flashlight off or the campfire dies down all you have is the starry sky overhead. Sometimes that can be quite bright indeed, but it is dark compared to living in the city. Or maybe like my wife and I recently did, you have driven through the desert and you were in complete darkness. Miles ahead you saw an aura in the horizon that turned out to be a city, and the closer you got to the city, the closer you got to the lights, and the brighter things became.
The same is true in life. God gives more light to the person who responds to the light he has. If you reject the light you have, you get more and more darkness. King Josiah illustrates this. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign as king of Judah. He was just a child. The Bible says that “he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father.” Then verse 3 says, “For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.” What you find in the verses following are basically this walk toward the light. Every time he took a step toward the light, he got more light.
All of us may look to the past, and wish we knew things then that we know now. Maybe you have said, “I wish I knew this when I was younger.” Well, wherever you are right now, you are younger now than you are even going to be again. So, the thing to do right now is respond to the light you have.
How did Josiah respond to this light? First, he had an awakened conscience. Verse 3 says, “He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem” from of all the idolatry and wickedness that accumulated through the years. Didn’t Josiah have a copy of all the law of Moses? I don’t know that he did because they found that later, but he had a conscience and the examples of what not to do from Ammon who “humbled not himself” and “trespassed more and more” and of what to do from David his ancestor who had done right and was a man after God’s own heart. So, he had an awakened conscience and he began to purge Judah.
Second, he had an act of pursuit. Verse 8 says he repaired the house of the Lord. He was still just a young man. He had an awakened conscience and then an act of pursuit. He sought God and repaired the house of God. Because he repaired of the house of God, they “found a book of the law of the LORD given by Moses.” When he got the book, he read it, and realized how far from God the nation had gone. Ultimately, he “made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statues, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.” So, this young man responded to the light he had, and God gave him more light. As he had more light, he was able to get more light still.
Wherever you are today, God will give you the light you need if you will respond to the light you have.