Category — faith

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. – Psalm 119:105, ESV

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days I just need this reminder that God is leading me step by step, and it doesn’t matter that I can’t see the end – or even what’s around the bend in the road – because I know that He is in control.

Yes, I know, there are two Word Filled Wednesday posts this week.  But this one goes with Amy Deanne’s verse so much better.

I’ve been reading this Summer… a lot.  The girls have to read at least 30 minutes per day, and I have been reading with them.  I have also been staying up with Eric as he works into the wee hours of the morning, and most often I read then as well.  Needless to say I’ve read quite a few books in the past 2 months.

But something I read tonight in one of these books struck a chord with me, and I thought I’d share it.  It is in response to a question about how a place that the characters are visiting is making them feel – giving them a completeness, a wholeness, a rightness to the world that they have never known.

“There is a love here that is rarely found on earth.  Perhaps in families, certainly between a husband and wife on occasion, but almost never in the world at large.  Love governs everything here.  Everything.  Love and the continually practiced presence of the Most High.

“Yeseph explained it once to me.  He said that the Most High is indeed ever-present with his creation, with us.  But we often lose sight of him – we fall away from him unless we practice his presence.  By that he meant we must keep him with us in our thoughts and deeds, lest we forget.

“For it is not the One who forgets us, but we forget him.  It is how we are made, a defect perhaps, but one that makes belief necessary.  And belief is the Most High’s greatest gift.  So even there he has rescued us.”

“Rescues us from ourselves.  I see.  Is it love that transforms even the common things – the sunrise yonder, for one – into such works of beauty?  Is it love that makes me feel as if all my life until now was a life lived in shadow?”

“Oh, yes!  Love, and the knowledge of the Most High”

“But I know very little of the Most High.  How can it be that I feel as I do?”

“In your heart of hearts you know him.  Durwin used to say that all men were born with the knowledge of the Most High in their hearts.  The trick is to spend more time remembering, and less time forgetting what we already know.”

“From now on I will spend all my time remembering.”

This is an excerpt from “The Sword and the Flame” by Stephen Lawhead.  It’s the third book in the Dragon King Trilogy.

I think that it is quite applicable to our lives as well.

We do often lose sight of God in the busyness of our day-to-day lives.  We do often forget Him as we go along through life.  The trick, it seems, is to spend more time remembering.

How is your memory today?

⁵ David slipped over to Saul’s camp one night to look around. Saul and Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army, were sleeping inside a ring formed by the slumbering warriors. ⁶ “Who will volunteer to go in there with me?” David asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother.

“I’ll go with you,” Abishai replied. ⁷ So David and Abishai went right into Saul’s camp and found him asleep, with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying asleep around him.

⁸ “God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!” Abishai whispered to David. “Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t need to strike twice!”

⁹ “No!” David said. “Don’t kill him. For who can remain innocent after attacking the Lord’s anointed one? ¹⁰ Surely the Lord will strike Saul down someday, or he will die of old age or in battle. ¹¹ The Lord forbid that I should kill the one he has anointed! But take his spear and that jug of water beside his head, and then let’s get out of here!”

¹² So David took the spear and jug of water that were near Saul’s head. Then he and Abishai got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up, because the Lord had put Saul’s men into a deep sleep.

¹³ David climbed the hill opposite the camp until he was at a safe distance. ¹⁴ Then he shouted down to the soldiers and to Abner son of Ner, “Wake up, Abner!”

“Who is it?” Abner demanded.

¹⁵ “Well, Abner, you’re a great man, aren’t you?” David taunted. “Where in all Israel is there anyone as mighty? So why haven’t you guarded your master the king when someone came to kill him? ¹⁶ This isn’t good at all! I swear by the Lord that you and your men deserve to die, because you failed to protect your master, the Lord’s anointed! Look around! Where are the king’s spear and the jug of water that were beside his head?”

¹⁷ Saul recognized David’s voice and called out, “Is that you, my son David?”

And David replied, “Yes, my lord the king. ¹⁸ Why are you chasing me? What have I done? What is my crime? ¹⁹ But now let my lord the king listen to his servant. If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then let him accept my offering. But if this is simply a human scheme, then may those involved be cursed by the Lord. For they have driven me from my home, so I can no longer live among the Lord’s people, and they have said, ‘Go, worship pagan gods.’ ²⁰ Must I die on foreign soil, far from the presence of the Lord? Why has the king of Israel come out to search for a single flea? Why does he hunt me down like a partridge on the mountains?”

²¹ Then Saul confessed, “I have sinned. Come back home, my son, and I will no longer try to harm you, for you valued my life today. I have been a fool and very, very wrong.”

²² “Here is your spear, O king,” David replied. “Let one of your young men come over and get it. ²³ The Lord gives his own reward for doing good and for being loyal, and I refused to kill you even when the Lord placed you in my power, for you are the Lord’s anointed one. ²⁴ Now may the Lord value my life, even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles.”

²⁵ And Saul said to David, “Blessings on you, my son David. You will do many heroic deeds, and you will surely succeed.” Then David went away, and Saul returned home.

1 Samuel 26:5-25, NLT

This is our passage this week.  David loved his enemy through God.  He stayed Abishai’s hand when he would have killed Saul because God had anointed Saul as king.  David waited on God’s timing.  We will start picking it apart tomorrow, but I wanted to let the story sink in today.

19 “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord.

20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:19-21

How often have I heard this verse used as a chance to biblically “stick it to your enemy” when that is so not the intent.  Verse 19 just finished stating that Vengence is the Lord’s… not ours.  The idea that you will be heaping hot coals is not actually a curse upon them – it is a further blessing.

We are called to love – to love our neighbors as we do ourselves and to love our enemies and those who seek to harm us.  Love is the most powerful force upon the earth.  It can change anything.

Our of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, and the body acts.  If we love those around us with God’s love, we will seek to bless them.

We’ve all been there.

You do something nice for someone else and they blow you off.  Or worse, they blame you or ridicule you for it.

You have been wronged.

How do you react?

Hopefully better than David did…

^12-13 David’s men got out of there and went back and told David what he had said. David said, “Strap on your swords!” They all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp.

^20-22 As she was riding her donkey, descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending from the other end, so they met there on the road. David had just said, “That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was lost—and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face! May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren’t dead meat by morning!”

-1 Samuel 25 – The Message

Hmmm…

Nabal said some pretty harsh things about David, and refused to acknowledge the assistance that David and his men offered.  It was an insult and a slap in the face – true – but was it worth his reaction?

David is fuming.  He is raging.  He is beyond sense as he hears what Nabal said about him, and it sends him into a fury that will only be stopped by bloodshed.

Apparently he is still a hot-headed young man who isn’t quite ready to be king.

But how different are we?

No, we don’t generally set our hearts upon bloodshed, but the bible does say that what we ponder in our hearts is as much a sin as following through with the action.

When we are wronged or insulted our first reaction is often to “get even.”  Sometimes we even consider acts of violence (not that we would ever follow through of course.  *note the sarcasm*) but that is not how we are called to react.

ruh-roh.

Nope, we are called to forgive. To be humble.  to turn the other cheek and – above all else – to love.

What?!!?!?

But God, You don’t know what they said!  You don’t know what they did!  They need to pay!

Well, actually, He does.  The bible also reminds us that vengence is not ours to give.  Justice is not ours to meter out.  Those belong to God alone.  He will judge our hearts and He will act where vengence is needed.

We are to be humble, forgiving souls that love those around us – even when they hurt us.  We are to give to those in need no matter if we like them or not.

I must admit that this is an area that I need to work on.  My initial reaction still takes a loooooooong time to get past.  I fall into the “get-even” trap all too easily, and it is hard to pull out of that.  In my own strength, well, let’s just say I can have some violent tendencies.  In my own strength I can work myself up to be rather, um, well, not very nice.

But in God’s strength I can learn not only to forgive, but to seek reconciliation.

How about you?  How do you react when you are wronged?  Do tell…

This week we are learning about David, Nabal and Abigail.  The passage is found in 1 Samuel 25:1-35.  Today, however, we will be focusing on Nabal.

^4-8 David, out in the backcountry, heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep and sent ten of his young men off with these instructions: “Go to Carmel and approach Nabal. Greet him in my name, ‘Peace! Life and peace to you. Peace to your household, peace to everyone here! I heard that it’s sheep-shearing time. Here’s the point: When your shepherds were camped near us we didn’t take advantage of them. They didn’t lose a thing all the time they were with us in Carmel. Ask your young men—they’ll tell you. What I’m asking is that you be generous with my men—share the feast! Give whatever your heart tells you to your servants and to me, David your son.’”

^9-11 David’s young men went and delivered his message word for word to Nabal. Nabal tore into them, “Who is this David? Who is this son of Jesse? The country is full of runaway servants these days. Do you think I’m going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for my sheepshearers and give it to men I’ve never laid eyes on? Who knows where they’ve come from?”

David and his men had been hanging out in the wilderness of Moan.  All Summer long they had been in the area where Nabal’s men were herding his sheep & goats.  All Summer long they had been offering protection to the sheep and the shepherds.  No animals had gone missing, no men were harmed in any way.  No other roaming bands or wild animals had been allowed to harm Nabal’s livestock or men either – because David and his men were protecting them.

So, David sends some guys over while the party is getting started and asks if they can join in.  Nabal is setting up a big celebration, and David is merely asking if they can come, and perhaps get some payment for the protection they offered all season long.

David’s men come to Nabal and make this request, and the are met with… resistance.

Nabal, foolish Nabal.  He offers ridicule and insult on top of not showing any gratitude for the protection they offered.  He pretends that he doesn’t know who David is, even while fully acknowledging who he is.  He sneers at David for being on the run from King Saul.  He ridicules them in a variety of ways and refuses to even acknowledge that they helped him out.

David and his men could have easily fed themselves throughout the season on roasted lamb.  They could have borrowed a ewe or ten to get fresh milk and fed themselves with fresh cheese and butter – but they didn’t.  Not only did they abstain from taking some of the herds for themselves, but they kept everything else from taking any of the livestock as well.

How often has it happened that you offer help to someone else and they throw it back in your face.

How often has someone else offered help to you, and you were the less-than-gracious recipient of that assistance?

Watching my own children I get to see this played out regularly.  Child #1 will be doing a chore.  Child #2 will come along and help her so that it is finished more quickly and they can play sooner.  When it comes time for the roles to be swapped, child #1 refuses to help out because “I didn’t want her to help in the first place!  I never asked her to help, she just did it!”

This is obviously not the correct response.

When others help us out, how should we respond?

We should react with gratitude and thankfulness – even when it means taking a notch off of our pride to do so.  We need to recognize the blessing of assistance – even when it wasn’t asked for – and express gratitude.

And we should never react with ridicule and distain.  That only leads to greater levels of conflict.

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” – 2 Timothy 2:13

I couldn’t resist this photograph.  To me, this screams out a lifelong faithfulness – and a couple that are still very much in love.

David has just walked down the hillside from the Israelite camp.  He has no armor, he has no shield-bearer.  He is young and untried.

But he walks forward with the strength and courage that can only come from God.

⁴¹The Philistine came on and drew near to David, the man who bore the shield going before him.⁴²And when the Philistine looked around and saw David, he scorned and despised him, for he was but an adolescent, with a healthy reddish color and a fair face.

⁴³And the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog, that you should come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

⁴⁴The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

Goliath, it seems, had a bit of a big mouth.  He was a veteran of battle.  He was fully armed and ready to face anyone Israel would send down… and they send this… this kid carrying nothing but a stick. It was an insult!

And Goliath called it the insult it was – “am I a dog?” which is what the Israelites called everyone else.  Dogs.  Apparently Goliath knew of this and threw the insult back at them.

But apparently he doesn’t care too much.  You see, he’s sure that he won’t even have to break a sweat to win.

Then David responds:

⁴⁵Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the ranks of Israel, Whom you have defied.

David Brought God into the equation immediately.  He walked forward in the power of the Lord.  He went into battle to defend the name of the Lord.  He went in full confidence of God’s deliverance.

His boast was not of himself… but of the God of Israel.

⁴⁶This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will smite you and cut off your head. And I will give the corpses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

⁴⁷And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.

Ooh – it just keeps getting better!  Here he is, a young, untrained guy, standing up to a well-armed, strong, huge warrior whose sole desire is to cut his head off.  And he calls him to the mat.

He brings all the swagger that he didn’t use with Saul – all the confidence and defiance he can muster to tell Goliath – and the Philistines behind him – that the God of Israel will not allow His children to be enslaved.  That he will win this battle without any armor, and without any sword.

He is giving the credit to God before he even starts.

Now that the insults have been hurled, it’s go time.

⁴⁸When the Philistine came forward to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

⁴⁹David put his hand into his bag and took out a stone and slung it, and it struck the Philistine, sinking into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.

⁵⁰So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck down the Philistine and slew him. But no sword was in David’s hand.

How can a tiny little rock kill a man?

Well, it may not have been a pebble.  Historians say that the stones that were often used in slings were a little bit larger than a baseball, and that in the hands of someone that knew how to use a sling properly they could be flung at speeds in excess of 100 mph.

Basically Goliath was taken down by a very solid fast ball between the eyes.

Ouch.

My daughter was hit in the head with a softball over the weekend – not anything to sneeze at.  Thankfully that ball wasn’t going anywhere near 100 mph, and it wasn’t aimed at her face.  There was little to no damage done.  However another woman at the tournament was not so lucky.  She was hit in the face with a ball.  It knocked her out cold.  There was blood – lots of blood, and she was having trouble remembering things.  A softball is much more forgiving than a rock… but even that can do some serious damage.

I’m sure David knew he would get one, maybe two shots off with the sling before Goliath was on top of him, and he took every advantage he could.  It says he was running towards Goliath – adding momentum to the rock he threw.  He didn’t hesitate either.  He started running, loaded the sling and flung it with all his might, and the rock struck home.

And with the power of the Most High God behind that rock, Goliath didn’t stand a chance.

When it’s go time for us, do we run headlong into the fray, taking advantage of any momentum God had given us?  Or do we hesitate and consider turning tail and hiding out until it’s over?

God will provide the weapons that we need for any battles that He has called us to.  We just need to trust the outcome to Him and give it our all.

We need to move forward in faith and trust that His strength will see us through.