I Did it My Way

Today's passage:  II Samuel 11
     Maybe the reason we have so many bumps in our road in this life is because when we have too many victories, too many successes, we lose our way and wander from God.  I can only believe that is what happened to David in this chapter.  What happened here?  How did David go from being a man who asked God what to do, who quelled his enemies (all Jehovah haters) to such depravity in this passage?  It is hard to fathom.  But it certainly shows me how careful I must be.  It is a warning that each day we must live anew and devoted to God.  I can not assume that because yesterday was a "good" day, that today will not be a bad one. I can not depend on the Bible reading and prayer from last week to get me through this week.  I need to be searching for God each and every day of life.  I need to grasp hold of His wonderful mercies, of His Words of Life every day that I can.  Does it mean I still may fall?  Yes.  But the more of God's Word I have in me, the more of His wisdom I have.  The more wisdom I have, the more able I am to discern situations and hopefully steer clear of ones that could doom me.
     Let me point out one more thing in this passage.  Sometimes if we want to do things our way long enough, God says okay.  What am I talking about?  After David has committed this sin with Bathsheba, after he finds out they are going to have a child together, he does everything he can to make it look like Uriah fathered that child.  He calls him back from battle and encourages him to go home to his wife.  This backfires because Uriah has an inordinate sense of duty which dictates to his conscience that he should still act the soldier even back on the home front.  So then, David keeps Uriah off the battlefield for a few days, apparently getting him drunk so that his conscience will be dimmed, and then perhaps he will go home to his wife.  This doesn't work either.  Too intoxicated, Uriah can only stumble as far as the servant's quarters, where he spends the night.  David is getting frustrated.  Does it seem that maybe God is giving David an out here?  I mean, in both of these instances, David could have made this situation right.  He could have owned up to his sin, asked forgiveness of this brother, and let God handle the matter.  But David is still plotting and scheming.  He gives Uriah a note to deliver to Joab when he returns to battle.  David has assessed enough about Uriah that his loyalty will have him deliver his own death warrant to the general, unopened and unread.

Nathan Confronts David
Original source and illustrator unknown

     Think about that.  Wasn't Uriah even a little curious as to what the letter contained?  Wouldn't he have wanted to sneak a little peek?  God could have had that happen.  That certainly would have been an awkward scenario.  But God lets David carry out this treacherous plan.  Uriah delivers the letter with David's wishes to have him killed, Joab reads and seems to immediately understand the situation.  Maybe Joab had been accustomed to David's wandering eye.  David did have a few wives already.  Joab does not ask questions.  He does what his king orders.  The move he makes is contrary to any he would make at other times.  Joab is too good of a military leader to do what he does here.  He moves his troops ridiculously close to the enemy wall.  In Judges, there is a similar story, where Gideon's son, Abimelech goes close to the wall and a woman drops a millstone on his head, which injures him enough that he could die a slow suffering death.  He chooses to have his men to run him through so that his death is quick and so that a woman does not get the credit for his demise.  Joab refers to this incident when he sends a messenger back to David to inform him of Uriah's death.  He basically tells him, "Ordinarily, we wouldn't have been so close to the wall as our forefather, Abimelech, but you did want Uriah dead, and we achieved that objective."
     David is relieved.  Little does he know that God allowing him to have his own way, is going to bring greater grief than David feels he can bear.  Sometimes God lets us have our own way.  Many times He gives us chances to make things right, to come clean, but if we refuse, God will allow us to bear the full consequences of our choices.  I will make mistakes.  I will make big mistakes.  Prayerfully, at the first opportunity, I will make it right, and not compound it with more foolish choices.  Prayerfully, I will allow His Word to saturate my decision making to avoid the mistake in the first place.  God allows me to do things my way, but it doesn't mean I will get away with sin.

Goin' Courtin'

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 6:1-8
     One year, I had a class of lively girls.  They were each little personalities on their own, but together, they were non-stop entertainment.  On break times, they would play Judge Judy.  Each day they would take turns being the judge, while the others pretended to be plaintiffs and defendants bringing their cases before her.  I often laughed so hard, it brought me to tears.  What is more, their pretend judgements were probably as reasoned as the actual judgements on the show, and their imaginary grievances as petty.
     Unfortunately, we have too many Christians who would be willing to take their disputes into a Judge Judy courtroom.  Paul tells us this is a mistake.  A Christian ought not to take another Christian before an unbeliever to judge the merits of their argument.  For one thing, an unbeliever will not judge with Godly wisdom (which I have to say, might be the whole reason Christians would go to an unbelieving judge, because they are not interested in God's wisdom about the matter in the first place).  A judge in the world is not going to judge according to God's standard, he will judge according to the laws of the city, county or state.  He may or may not hand down a verdict that befits the violation.  We cannot argue that we did not like the way he handled the case, because we left the case in his hands and trusted him with the judgement in it.  Why not leave it in God's?  I know His ways are perfect.  I know His judgement is just.  I know that He understands every angle of the case, and does not need me to argue why I am right.  When we go to the courts, we are basically telling God that we have found something that He has no power to handle.  Aren't we?  Aren't we saying to God, "My Christian brother took advantage of my gullibility, kindness (whatever it is) and I know You can't change his heart about it, God."  It is a complete lack of trust in God's ability to transform people.  It is a complete lack of faith in God's perfect knowledge of every situation. 
      Besides the fact that taking my Christian sister to court is faithlessness on my part, what does it tell an unbelieving world?  We are supposed to bring souls to Christ, not push them away.  In what way at all will God get glory when we take our issues before the world?  I can't think of one way that is possible.  I can't think of any good thing that can come of it.  I can't imagine any outcome that will put the church or Christians in a good light.  I am guessing that if anything, people will make sure they avoid the church that is the source for this strife. 
     But what if I am the one being accused of wrongdoing?  What if I haven't done wrong?  What if my sister believes I have defrauded her, but I honestly have not.  I am writing this to remind myself, should the time come along.  Paul says, "Why do ye not rather take wrong?  why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?"  I should take the hit.  If I can at all correct the situation, whether it be paying for something I did not do, donating a service I did not offer, I should appease my sister as best I can to keep it out of the courts.  If I am the one who has been cheated, and I have talked to my Christian sister about the situation, but she refuses to make it right, I should cut my losses.    But more than either of these, I should pray.  Don't pray that the other person will see the light, that God will change their heart, but pray and ask God how He can use me to be a better witness for Him.  I am certain I cannot be a better witness sitting in the courtroom, arguing why I am right and she is wrong.  All that accomplishes is showing the world how petty Christians can be. 
     There is another thing.  How am I ever to serve in a church with a Christian I took to court?  How on earth would that work?  It is going to result in one of us worshipping in a different congregation.  It is going to result in the church family taking sides with the two disputers, causing a greater rift among the members.  This is never a desirable result.  This is never something that is pleasing to God.  The ripple effect of this never seems to end. 
    I may leave a courtroom with the verdict in my favor.  I may have all the wrongs restored.  But in the courtroom of the world, I have lost.  I have lost credibility in the God who could have judged for me, and I have lost my testimony as someone who proclaims Christ and His love.  Where is my love when all I can see is how I have been defrauded?  I think even school-age Judge Judy's could see through that.

Uncivil War

Today's passage:  I Samuel 11:1-6
      Civil war is an oxymoron.  When is war ever civil?  Our own Civil War took more lives than in any other war our country had been involved.  Other nations' civil wars have been even bloodier by people less merciful.  I was directed to the book of Judges (specifically chapters 19-21), one of Israel's civil wars.  I think it is important to understand the events there, to really get a good grasp on what is happening here in Chapter 11.  Those chapters reveal a lot about the legacy of Benjamin's tribe, Saul's heritage.
     Judges 19 relates the story of a Levite whose concubine goes back to her village to visit family.  After an extended stay, the Levite goes to bring her back to his home. Each day he gets ready for the journey home, and each day the girl and her father convince him to stay yet another day.  This goes on for a week or so, until the Levite refuses, insisting they must get home.  They start their journey rather late in the day and stop in Jerusalem (at that time called Jebus), which was part of Benjamin's territory.  They are not offered anywhere to stay, prepared to sleep in the street, until an old farmer on his way home from the fields, knowing they will be unsafe, offers hospitality in his home.  The town is a wicked place.  As happens in Genesis, when Lot houses the two angels, the old farmer is prevailed upon by men of the town (Benjamites) to let them have their way with the gentleman and his servant.  I know a lot of people would say that the generation we live in is worse than any previous generation, but when I read the story here and in Genesis, I would have to say no. We are getting there, but I still don't believe our nation is as wicked as in Old Testament times.  Yet.  Or maybe I just haven't visited the places that are this evil.  I've admitted before, I am naive.  The old man gives them the Levite's concubine instead, and forgive the language but the passage says, "and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning".  Reading that, my heart aches for that poor woman.  Her heart is broken.  Her body is broken.  Her spirit is broken.  The Levite has to transport her home by donkey, and either she is dead on arrival, or she cannot revive to her former self.  I'm not clear on the details here, but the Levite then cuts her bone and flesh into twelve portions which he sends throughout the tribes, as evidence to what had taken place in Gibeah.  The other tribes are outraged.  Together, they make a plan of action to declare war on Benjamin's tribe.  Each tribe individually goes up against these men of Gibeah.  Many lives are lost.  Finally, the Benjamites are foiled and the other eleven tribes triumph.  But nobody really triumphs, especially in a war among your own.  Benjamin is given sanctions.  The other tribes refuse to allow them to marry from their women.  The Benjamites have no choice but to take wives from Jabesh-gilead (Manasseh's tribe who refused to help in the fighting).  This sets the scene for today's passage.
     The Ammonites live in the far eastern part of Palestine.  One of their own, Nahash, boldly sets up camp in Jabesh-gilead (just east of the Jordan River), those whose wives had been taken for the Benjamites to marry.  Saul himself, may have been a product of these marriages.  With this history between the tribes of Benjamin and Manasseh, either their relationship was very close, or very contentious.  The residents of Jabesh-gilead are willing to strike a deal with this Ammonite (or so it seems).  It would appear they did not have love for their new king, seeing as he is a Benjamite.   Maybe Nahash suspected this, and it is why he chose to go north of his own Ammon, hoping he might engage an ally against Israel's new king.  When the people of Jabesh-gilead pledge their allegiance to Nahash, he tells them their reward will be to have their right eyes plucked out.  What a deal!  Sign me up.  I guess the townspeople felt this was better than being torn from limb to limb.  But before they agree, they want a week to think about it.  They really want a week to enlist help from the other tribes.  For whom do they send?  King Saul and the tribe of Benjamin. 
     "And the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard those tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly."  People protesting war need to realize, that even God ordained it sometimes.  It was God's Spirit who had righteous anger towards these Ammonites who were threatening his people.  War is never civil, but it is sometimes necessary.  Easy for me to say, I don't have a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan.  I never lost a father or uncle in Vietnam.  I never saw my brothers suffer flashbacks from the Gulf War.  I'm not saying it is easy.  I'm not saying it is desirable.  There are times when war is a definite match of good versus evil.  Our own Revolutionary War attained for us the liberty to worship freely.  The Civil War afforded the Civil Rights Movement in our country to establish that all men really are created equal.  World War I fought against absolute power by any one country, a time when missionaries were establishing the Lord's work throughout the world.  The results of World War II preserved God's people, the Jews.  Korea, Vietnam and today in Afghanistan and Iraq, were all fought to enable liberty for those peoples.  I cringe when people argue we should not be in those places.  Why is it our job?  Because we have the means to do it.  What other country in the world has the Light that we have?  What other nation has our resources?  Why should we surrender our men and women for these causes?  First of all, our men and women (my heart swells with pride when I write this) mostly volunteer.  They volunteer to defend our liberties, and they volunteer to help the downtrodden.  Second of all, war is always sacrificial.  We sacrifice our best, to keep the best.  It angers me when people try to take Scripture and say, "God is against war".  God sometimes instigated war.  In the passage in Judges, as each tribe is being demolished before the Benjamites, the remaining tribes go to the Lord and ask Him if they are supposed to go against their brother like this.  Each time, God says yes.  Am I saying every war is God's will?  No.  But every war has accomplished a purpose for God, in some fashion.  War is never civil.  It is never pretty.  It is never something to desire.  But it is sometimes the only way to achieve the work that God needs to do.  The remainder of this chapter I will continue tomorrow.  This post certainly took a turn different than what I had expected.  God's Hand is on Saul right now.  We will see how he will enable him to accomplish more for Him.

Blurred Lines

Today's passage:  I Samuel 7
     When I was younger, and we went to the beach I used to walk along the sand, watching my footprints disappear as the waves washed them away.  I would write my name or draw a picture waiting for the waves to erase them like an Etch-a-Sketch.  Sometimes the sand would only partially erase them, so that the letters of my name or the lines of the picture were blurred.  They were still there, but it wasn't easy to make out what they had been.  This is what I think about when I think about how Israel mingled idol worship with Jehovah worship.  Blurred lines which make you wonder what the real thing was in the beginning.
     Samuel tries to set his people on a right path.  Throughout Israel's history, they had forsaken God and gone after the gods of the surrounding nations.  When the leadership was weak, Jehovah worship was weaker.  One of the first instances of the people departing from God to worship an idol is back in Exodus, when the people form the golden calf.  They had just come from Egypt and had been exposed to the numerous idols the Pharaoh and his people worshipped.  Why shouldn't the Hebrew children have a physical representation of Jehovah?  They quickly find out this was not God's plan, and suffer the consequences of such behavior.  Yet, we see repeatedly in the Old Testament how they continue to fall into these heathen rituals.  The book of Judges narrates repetitive cycles of the Jews falling away from God, falling before idols, falling into trouble, and then falling on their knees before the Lord.  Why would they keep doing this?  Peer pressure. Like the waves of the ocean carrying away part of the sand picture, peer pressure carried away part of what they believed.   During Joshua's military campaigns, he had failed to drive the enemy nations out of the land, so their influence remained in the land, and slowly trickled into Israel's worship. 
     Now, in I Samuel, they were aggravated with the Philistine control of many of their cities.  Samuel tells them how to correct this.  It doesn't seem like he should have had to explain this to them, but it had been a long time between the book of Judges and the book of Samuel.  We saw how Eli had been the priest for many of those 100 years.  And as we've seen before, with weak leadership was weak worship.  They needed to be reminded how to go back to God.  Sometimes we need reminders.  Sometimes we don't even see how far away the ocean has carried us until God brings something into our lives and we look and say, "Hey, how did I get all the way over here?"  I think that probably happened in Israel.  They drifted little by little until they didn't even know they weren't worshipping God at all.  It isn't until Samuel brings it to their attention that they say, "Oh yeah, we've been doing this wrong."
      The people commit to do things God's way. Samuel puts their faith to the test.  How?  He has the people gather at Mizpeh (not to be confused with Mizpah, which is a little farther north in the hills).  Mizpeh is located right on the border of Philistia and Israel, past the hill country of Ephraim, and on a major waterway.  Do you think the Philistines are not going to notice this?  Do you think Samuel chose this site by accident?  I don't.  I think Samuel was letting his people (and the Philistines) know that if they were truly going to surrender to God, they were going to have to trust Him to deliver them from the enemy.  He makes a big show of it too, almost daring the Philistines to come after them.  He had seen how they had demolished his people, I'm guessing he was anxious to see some of them tucking tail and running.  Samuel pours out a drink offering, and the people fast and pray.  The Philistines are on their way over.  God's people are afraid.  They had already suffered at Philistine hands once, they really didn't want to go through that again.  Samuel prays and offers a lamb sacrifice before the Lord.  The Lord answers by thundering down on the Philistines.  Israel takes back ownership of many of the cities the Philistines had captured and the two nations live in relative peace while Samuel is in charge.  Of course, this sets the scene perfectly for the epic battle between David and Goliath.  It is no wonder Goliath will taunt the Israelis, but more about that in Chapter 17.
     Would Israel's behavior be long-term?  Only if they distanced themselves from evil influences.  Only if they didn't chat with the Philistine farmer just on the other side of the border, or go get a drink with the Philistine soldier guarding the river crossing.  When I think about these people in their everyday life, that maybe they had befriended each other in their daily lives, then it is easy to see how dinner at a Philistine family's home could develop into a meaningful friendship and could influence love for Jehovah God.  Maybe there were times that this had the reverse effect and a Philistine would come to know about Israel's God instead of the other way around, but it seems this was rare.  Does this mean we shouldn't be friends with the world?  We have to be careful.  Of course, we want to be friendly and show them the love of God, but it becomes difficult when we are invited into their homes or invited to other activities.  My husband faces this every week.  He has many police friends that invite him to a bar or a party or even a ballgame.  The bar is obviously out, but the party or the ballgame seem harmless.  But usually there is drinking involved.  Though my husband has had a history with alcohol and has not had a temptation to return to it, he knows that it makes better sense to stay as far away as possible than put himself in a situation where he will be under its exposure.  These have not always been easy choices for him, because he wants to be friends with these people so he can point them to Christ.  But there has to be a line of separation too.  And that line of separation can become blurry after a while, if we do not keep close to God.  You know what keeps the line from getting blurry?  Drawing the line farther away from the tide.  I never had to wonder if my footprints or my name or picture would wash away in the waves when I was farther up the beach.  Once in a while an unusually heavy wave would try to reach me, but if I was far enough off the tide line, I could play for hours.  The Israelites were only as safe as their lines were.  If the lines started to blur, and they didn't reestablish them far enough away from their heathen counterparts, they would become confused and lose their identity in God.  I have to establish lines too.  And that is not always easy.