There Is Only One True Hero

Reading through 1 Kings this morning and came to chapter 13. A man of God warns an evil king of his sin and its consequences and his message is miraculously affirmed by God. In obedience to God the man of God rejects the kings offer to receive hospitality and leaves. Then on his way, an old prophet goes to meet the man of God and, for reasons unclear, lies to him and says that God wants him to delay his journey and come receive hospitality at HIS home. When the man of God agrees and they sit to eat, the old prophet receives a REAL message from God for the man of God, telling him that he disobeyed by stopping to receive hospitality and that consequently he would not be buried with his fathers. The man of God goes on his way and is shortly killed by a wild animal. The old prophet collects his body and buries it, mourns his death and tells his sons to bury him with the man of God when he dies.

When I find myself the victim of someone's sin it's so easy to mentally paint myself the "hero" or "good guy" and the other as the villain. But the more I look at my heart the more of a mixed bag of messy motives I see. This story has so much moral complexity in it that I initially wondered, "why is this here"? I don't know for sure, but I wonder if it's included to remind Israel and us that we all need rescue, and even in the midst of being sinned against, or while serving God, we can still find ourselves in the wrong.

Anyway, just really striking to me today and I felt like processing it in writing a bit.

Well, that's... huh.
I'm going to have to read through that one.
Interesting thoughts on it.