Asa (Self-Reliance)

Internal Struggle

Self-Reliance

Asa was one of Judah’s better kings. He removed the idols, renewed the covenant with God, and won a remarkable military victory when he prayed and God routed an enemy army of a million men. Then, decades later, a smaller threat came and instead of praying, he hired a foreign army, and when a prophet challenged him for it he threw the prophet in prison. He had seen what trusting God produced and chose a different strategy when it was convenient.

What Happened?

Asa became king of Judah and began by removing pagan altars and high places, cutting down Asherah poles, and commanding the people to seek God. When an army of a million Cushites came against him, he prayed and God struck the Cushite army and they were routed. Later in his reign, the king of Israel fortified a city near Jerusalem’s border to block trade. Asa took silver and gold from the temple treasury and hired the king of Aram to break his treaty with Israel and attack from the north instead. The strategy worked militarily. A prophet came and told him he had relied on the king of Aram rather than on God and that from now on he would have wars. Asa was angry, put the prophet in prison, and began oppressing some of the people. In his old age he developed a severe foot disease and did not seek God but only sought physicians. He died two years later (2 Chronicles 14-16).

How Did Self-Reliance Affect Asa?

Asa had experienced the direct result of trusting God in an apparently impossible military situation and still chose human strategy the next time
He used the temple treasury, which belonged to God, to fund a foreign alliance rather than asking God to deal with the problem
When confronted with the shift in his approach, he imprisoned the messenger rather than examining the message
His response to a physical illness at the end of his life showed the same pattern, managing the problem through available means without reference to God
The reliance on God that had defined his early reign became selective in his later years
The contrast between the Asa who prayed before the million-man army and the Asa who imprisoned a prophet for telling the truth is the same man at different points in the same story

The Tragedy

Asa’s trajectory is one of the most common in Scripture: a genuinely good start that gradually eroded under the pressure of success and age. He built something real in his early years. His later choices did not undo the early ones, but they defined how the story ended. He died with a foot disease he had refused to bring to God, after imprisoning a prophet and oppressing people, watched the rest of his life by someone who had seen what he was capable of at his best. The prophet’s word was accurate: he had wars from that point on and he never returned to the posture that had produced the greatest victory of his reign.

The Pattern That Led to Destruction

Trusted God in an impossibly large crisis and saw an extraordinary outcome
Faced a smaller challenge and chose human strategy over the same approach that had worked
Used sacred resources to fund the human strategy
Received a prophetic correction and responded with punishment rather than consideration
Applied the same pattern of self-managed solutions to physical suffering at the end of his life

Practical Steps for Facing Self-Reliance

Remember what happened the last time you trusted God fully and let that inform how you approach the current situation
Notice when you are solving a problem with resources that were set apart for something else
Be suspicious when the approach that requires no prayer feels like the more practical one
Receive correction from a trusted source without punishing the person who delivered it
Apply the same posture in your private struggles that you would recommend to someone else facing the same thing publicly
Ask whether the strategy you are about to use is one you would be comfortable describing to the person whose early faith you most admired in yourself
Do not let a long track record of success become the reason you stop asking for help