In Love with the Bible

Learning to love God's Word

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1 Samuel 28

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In a recent reading of this passage, I found myself thinking about how King Saul, who begins so well, finishes in such a sad place. He is filled with fear, doesn’t hear from God, and doesn’t know where to turn. So, he goes to the occult—which he had banished from his kingdom, presumably because he knew God does not approve of such things. In his desperation for a word from the Lord he asks a medium to bring up Samuel. Samuel is not pleased and the word he speaks to Saul is that he and his sons will die as Israel’s armies lose to the Philistines. I cannot help but feel sorry for him at this point, but I wonder if this is the result of his failure to whole-heartedly follow God.

At some point, Saul seems to have become more concerned with his reputation than obedience to God. When Samuel spoke to Saul before he was anointed king, Saul responded to Samuel’s honoring by asking “Why have you spoken to me in this way?” He saw himself as being part of the smallest tribe, and of the humblest clan in that tribe. Yet after he has been king and experienced success in battle, there seems to be a different attitude. When Samuel told him that the kingdom would be taken from him because of his disobedience (when he had only partially done what God asked him to do) his response to Samuel was “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel…” (1 Samuel 15:30) He begins trying to kill David after the women sing songs about Israel’s victories and they ascribe more slain enemies to David than to Saul. He tells Jonathan that it is wrong to protect David because David would take the kingdom from him—as if he had not already been told that his kingdom was being taken from him.

In thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that there is a price for whole-heartedly following God, but there is also a price for following God half-heartedly. Obedience may be costly at times, but so is disobedience. When life is hard, I do not want to be in the place of fear and desperation Saul found himself because he lacked connection to God.

2 Peter 1:5b-8

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2 Peter 1:5b-8

I posted about these verses before, but this time I want to focus on the first verse that tells us “Make every effort (or as another translation says, apply all diligence) to increase in the qualities of virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.” I realize how easy it is for me to think of applying effort and diligence as drudgery; a plodding on when one really wants to be done. It sounds completely joyless. But I’ve come to realize there is another way to look at it. An athlete who wants to be at the top of his game spends a lot of time in conditioning and practice drills that will increase his skill. Knowing the value of the drills enables the athlete to be diligent in doing them without thinking of them as drudgery. His focus is on the skill building; he is looking for the benefits and growth that come from them. Peter says the benefit we get from being diligent in pursuing these attributes is a knowledge of Jesus that is both useful and fruitful. That is a worthy goal—one to keep in mind when I am making the effort to grow in them.

2 Chronicles 29:3 &17

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Hezekiah’s father was a pagan. He closed up the Temple, followed the gods of other nations, and made altars to them on the corners of Jerusalem and in every city in Judah. When Hezekiah came to the throne, reestablishing worship of God appears to have been his first order of business. On the first day of his reign, he had the Levites begin cleansing and repairing the Temple. On the eighth day, the cleansing was complete and sacrifices to the Lord resumed. I found myself wondering what was the source of his zeal for God. Did he see the fruit of his father’s way, which included defeat at the hands of many neighbors and the resulting loss of territory and captivity of his people? Did he have a mother who was a believer and taught him the ways of God? Maybe he had godly counselors who were influential before he came to the throne? We don’t know. But we do know that on the first day of his reign his goal was restoring the worship of the true God. His own reign was not trouble free, but his faithfulness made a difference when Assyria attacked Jerusalem. I am reminded that God also deserves to be my number one priority. When he is preeminent in my life, the other claims on my life are in proper balance; it helps me live life in the best possible way.

God’s Odd Ways

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God’s Odd Ways: In a recent reading of Genesis, it struck me that God made a plan to have a people for himself—and he began with a man whose wife was infertile. When God performed a miracle and a son was born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, their son also had a marriage marked by infertility—20 years of it. God is clearly not in a hurry. It is one of the things that can be so frustrating to me as a believer. How many times in Scripture do we see people in circumstances that easily lead to the question, “Where are you, God?” Yet the Bible references God acting “in the fullness of time.” I find I need to just trust his timing, to believe he is working even if I don’t see it, and to remember that God knows the end from the beginning. He has a plan.

Cheerful and Not Cheerful Hearts

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I am not a naturally cheerful person and at one point in time I began to meditate on two verses that I thought would help me remember the value of a cheerful heart. Both verses underscore a positive attitude as being a blessing in life, but I have found that the greatest lesson for me comes from the contrasting negative attitudes.

One verse is Proverbs 15:15, which says, “All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast.” I am convinced that whether my days are spent in affliction or in feasting is a result of the way I choose to respond to life events. I have seen people respond to things that would irritate me as if they were no big deal—and in truth, they probably are not. I’ve read biographies of people who have gone through harrowing times, and chose to look to God for hope, to seek his wisdom for how they should respond. Realistically, they were afflicted, but they did not think like it or live like it. Their response kept them from living as afflicted in circumstances that were afflicting.

The other is Proverbs 17:20, “A joyful heart causes good healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” After reflecting on what causes a broken spirit, I believe it is a symptom of a loss of hope. I think a loss of hope in everyday life is likely to be the fruit of repeated disappointment—unfulfilled expectations. One way I experience such disappointment is when I fail to be realistic. I am a sinner living among sinners; why should I expect life without irritations, broken promises, conflicts, or unfulfilled expectations, some of which are my own fault? The only things I can truly count on are God’s promises—and even there I need to be careful to not build expectations in my mind about when or how God will fulfill those promises. He is the only one who knows the end from the beginning and it is wise to trust his love and his knowledge when I am faced with disappointment. I do not want negative life circumstances to leave me with a broken spirit. I want to see God’s love, mercy, and grace instead.

I have come to the conclusion that my response to life’s pressures is directly related to the level of trust I have in God. The assurance of God’s love helps me to believe God is using for good that which I find hard or unpleasant. As he has increased my understanding of his personal care for me, I find I have a greater willingness to accept life as it is, instead of complaining about it, and to seek God’s wisdom for how I should respond to that reality.

Reflection on the book of Job:

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I recently finished reading the book of Job. The predominant world view of Job’s three friends is that God rewards those who do well and punishes those who do evil. Thus, Job’s friends tell him if he would just repent, things would be well for him again. I think it was also Job’s world view, which is why he struggled to make sense of his suffering—he repeatedly insists he’s was not aware of any sin he needed to repent of. (This attitude irks his friends so much they end up accusing him of evil!) When Elihu joins the conversation, he focuses on the fact that God is greater than man and does not have to give an account to anyone for what he does, but he also makes it clear that he, too, believes Job has sinned. God, however, does not accuse Job of sin.

When God has finished speaking, Job is satisfied. It is not because he now understands why he has experienced such suffering; God never addresses that question. But Job does have an experience of hearing God and I think that’s what he needed most. This is true for me, too. When life is hard, I don’t so much need to know why it’s hard as to know that God is near and still cares, to hear his voice and know he has not forgotten me.