The Dreadful Responsibility!

The dreadful responsibility!

One of the life’s greatest assignments is to dole-out RESPONSIBILITIES to us all. In real sense of it, we cannot live life without taking and accepting responsibilities even when we are not ready for it.The authority we could exert sometimes is a function of the responsibilities we are willing to accept. Actions are tied to responsibilities and commensurate authorities are made available for the responsibility to be easily executed. Nature, Man and situations could put on you responsibilities beyond your abilities, but because responsibilities challenge your abilities, you sometimes surprisingly find yourself living up to the responsibilities.

Situation sometimes puts you in a difficult state where you have no options than to accept responsibilities for some actions even where such actions were taken by other people. Permit me for the sake of illustration to break the word responsibility to RES-POND-ABILITY; that is, your ability to respond to circumstances, situations, roles assignments and dictates of live generally. Where such ability is lacking, the desired result(s) is not seen and the effect of this lack of ability could be devastative. Respond time could also be of essence, accuracy of response is vital to evaluate the whole resulting ability of the person tagged RESPONSIBLE.

There was an account in the scriptures, in the book of Samuel chapter 6; the nation Israel lost their most potent weapon of war to the Philistines. After some season the enemies decided to restore the weapon back to the rightful owners, especially when they discover that they do not know ‘how’ to use the weapon. King David about the fact that the enemies had by themselves brought the weapon to the boundaries ofJudahDavid accepted the responsibility for restoring the weapon back to its original place and be used for its original purposes. The whole process of restoration was neither hindered by any form of time strain nor unwilliness from any of the royal staffers of the king. In-fact the enthusiasm by which all was willing to march with the king in this assignment of restoration was TOTAL. The weapon was a national weapon – THE ARK OF CONVENANT.

David the king, has the sole responsibility to restore the Ark back to Zion. As far as God Almighty is concerned the king was accountable to him. The process got started Professional cart riders were engaged, the very best of them Uzzah and Ahiorode the chariot carrying the national weapon 2Sam 6:3 And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. Something went wrong, Uzzah tried to help, in the process he died – God slew him.

Immediately, the significant of the seemingly simple weapon suddenly became clear to everyone David immediately saw how important God esteems this weapon. The celebration of the proceedings went awry that day because of the death of Uzzah; not just the death, but open death caused by God Himself. That’s serious! Terror of who and where to keep this weapon fell upon everyone! How do you bring such a DREADFUL weapon into the city of Zion? A weapon that made God kill people even someone that supposedly was trying to help and safe the nation from national embarrassment. But God took it personal, killed such a professional and dutiful servant. No one was ever willing to accept responsibility for the safe keep of the ARK OF GOD following the development. Where do we rest the Ark? Not even the palace of the king was good enough for it anymore as far as David was concerned; I guess there was no need for wide consultations as to where to rest the Ark. He horridly took on-the-sport a decision to excuse the weapon away from the public; The Ark should move to the house of another dutiful servant Obed’edom he ordered, 2Sam 6:10.

Let me reiterate here that the ARK was a symbol of God’s presence. Anywhere the Ark was, God was assuredly there. Again it was a weapon, great weapon of physical battle, the Israelites often carried with them to battles front. Itsefficacy for victory is well known by all. Even the enemies could testify to its potency. I don’t want you thinking ‘But how come such a powerful Ark?’ It was part of the methodology of God to tell man how great He really is. The Ark contains three symbolic items; THE TABLET OF TEN COMMANDMENTS 1Kings 8:9, THE AARON’S ROD THAT BODED Num 17:10 and SAMPLES OF THE MANNA with which God fed His children in the desert Exo 16:33. Each item has a great symbol and meaning. For the purpose of not digressing, I will not go into that now; but these are what were in the box that God Almighty chooses to kill for. Permit me to say here, it goes beyond the items in the box but His promise. The Ark was called THE ARK OF CONVENANT, (agreement between God and Man to make the presence of God continually available anywhere you find the Ark.) Man was to WORSHIP in His presence, and the Zoe around the Ark cannot be evaluated. Very intense, awesome! We saw the gods of the Philistines rendered completely useless before the Ark even without any one there. Again, we saw God kill for this same object. Then there was more to it.

The safe keep of such weapon you would have agreed should be in the hands of highly responsibly officers in the ministry, maybe in the custody of the King, the Priest, the pastor, the superintendent, the General Overseer, Archbishop or the Pope. Unfortunately, everyone knowing the antecedents of the Ark took cover for themselves and their household not even the friend of God (David) was willing to accept such a dreadful responsibility.

Looking around, David just concluded on a person‘who was insignificant enough such that his death and probably death of his household pose no national treat’; Obed’edom - the gate keeper. The order was given by the king that the Ark should immediately be moved to the household of Obed’edom. No single person objected to this decision. It was a national consensus that the gate keeper was irrelevant and good enough for death. No one objected, instead every one daily kept a tab on Obed’edom and his household waiting for when mortality announcement would be heard from the family. But the situation proved otherwise. The weapon of war became an instrument of blessing to this household 2 Sam 6:11. God who always is a ROCK of offence to our enemies is constantly our ROCK of defence. The Ark became a total instrument of blessing to this gate keeper so much that the people reported to the king about it and the king reacted immediately to the report.

I tried to appraise the situation and I came to these conclusions: Obed’edom dare to accept this DREADFUL RESPONSIBILITY,in return GOD DARED TO SURPRISE HIM. That which was wished for him unto death became a great blessing that announced him to the world to-date. I pray that every dreadful responsibilities push towards you for shame and disgrace, responsibilities that your enemies know you do not have capacity for, yet enemies allotted it to you aiming it at your embarrassment, God will turn it around for your good IN THE NAME OF JESUS! Live situation may have dole out to you responsibilities beyond your finances, your intellectual capacity and natural abilities, heavens will rise up for your sake to-day and as the captivity of Zion was turned around, your life will experience a great turn-around in Jesus name. You will become the next Obed’edom that the nation includingthe King wanted dead but now became envious of. YOU ARE NEXT IN LINE for national testimonies. AMEN.