Soon after Rehoboam had control of his kingdom, he and everyone in Judah stopped obeying the Lord. So in the fifth year of Rehoboam’s rule, the Lord punished them for their unfaithfulness and allowed King Shishak of Egypt to invade Judah. - 2 Chronicles 12:1-2 (CEV)

This passage offers us an insight on how to make yourself impregnable and not vulnerable to enemies’ attacks. According to the passage, Rehoboam, king of Judah, got to a point in his reign when he felt he didn’t need God anymore. So he started to do things his own way and disregarded God and His laws. It didn’t take him long to discover he had made a terrible mistake, as another king from another country invaded Rehoboam’s kingdom with devastating effects.

This is a lesson for us in success management. No matter how big or high and mighty we become, we should never get to a point that we feel we can do without God or that we have all the answers. At the start of his reign, Rehoboam contended with an insurrection that divided the nation of Israel into two nations, leaving him with a paltry two out of the 12 tribes to govern. In the heat of this, he must have been a regular face at the temple and a prayer warrior of a sort pleading with God not to subject him to shame, as he could have ended with no kingdom at all.

Even before he became king, Rehoboam might have been very devoted to God praying earnestly that he would be the one to succeed Solomon, his father, among the numerous sons he had. Meanwhile, once he became king and survived the civil war, Rehoboam abandoned God and started doing things contrary to God’s counsel. And this made God remove the hedge of protection He had cast around him all this while, which had helped him to become king and survive the rebellion.

Immediately that hedge was removed, Shishak, the king of Egypt, saw the vast resources that were in Judah and mobilised his army to invade the land. He carted away all the treasures and gold that Solomon his father had amassed for years and left the land empty (2 Chronicles 12:9-10). But for Rehoboam’s sins, Shishak or any other enemy would have remained blind to the treasures in Judah. Sin exposes.

But for Rehoboam’s disregard for God, he and his people would have continued to live in peace, with no external aggression whatsoever. But, because he allowed his success to get into his head, and thus started feeling he could handle anything and had no need of God, he became exposed, vulnerable and inadvertently opened up himself, his people and his land to the invasion of the enemies.

We ought to learn from his example, and note that no matter how successful we become, or how secure we feel, there can never be any substitute for God.

You will succeed in Jesus Name!

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