Monthly Archives: February 2017
“SEVEN DAYS TO JUDGMENT”
“8 Elah son of Baasha began to rule over Israel in the twenty-sixth year of King Asa’s reign in Judah. He reigned in the city of Tirzah for two years.
9 Then Zimri, who commanded half of the royal chariots, made plans to kill him. One day in Tirzah, Elah was getting drunk at the home of Arza, the supervisor of the palace.
10 Zimri walked in and struck him down and killed him. This happened in the twenty-seventh year of King Asa’s reign in Judah. Then Zimri became the next king.
11 Zimri immediately killed the entire royal family of Baasha, leaving him not even a single male child. He even destroyed distant relatives and friends.
12 So Zimri destroyed the dynasty of Baasha as the LORD had promised through the prophet Jehu.
13 This happened because of all the sins Baasha and his son Elah had committed, and because of the sins they led Israel to commit. They provoked the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, with their worthless idols.
14 The rest of the events in Elah’s reign and everything he did are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel.
15 Zimri began to rule over Israel in the twenty-seventh year of King Asa’s reign in Judah, but his reign in Tirzah lasted only seven days. The army of Israel was then attacking the Philistine town of Gibbethon.
16 When they heard that Zimri had committed treason and had assassinated the king, that very day they chose Omri, commander of the army, as the new king of Israel.
17 So Omri led the entire army of Israel up from Gibbethon to attack Tirzah, Israel’s capital.
18 When Zimri saw that the city had been taken, he went into the citadel of the palace and burned it down over himself and died in the flames.
19 For he, too, had done what was evil in the LORD’s sight. He followed the example of Jeroboam in all the sins he had committed and led Israel to commit.
20 The rest of the events in Zimri’s reign and his conspiracy are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel.”
In my daily Bible reading, I am slogging through a dismal section of 1 Kings, in which there is more sin and palace intrigue than you can encounter in an afternoon soap opera. It is not an encouraging section of the Bible. It is too realistic to be encouraging.
Evaluations are given to each of the kings, but these evaluations are rarely positive. A corrupt king follows a corrupt king, who follows a corrupt king, who . . . Well, you get the picture.
Zimri had assassinated Elah, who had reigned only two years. However, Zimri’s reign was somewhat shorter. He reigned for seven days.
Seven days isn’t a lot of time. Yet the narrator of 1 Kings sums up Zimri’s reign in verses 18 and 19 as follows: “. . . [He] died in the flames. For he, too, had done what was evil in the LORD’s sight. He followed the example of Jeroboam in all the sins he had committed and led Israel to commit.”
It would appear that “God’s summarizer” (the narrator) can pronounce God’s judgment on even a seven-day reign.
I decided to pause and think about this a moment. I’m glad that I did pause. It is early Monday morning, the beginning of my work week.
I asked myself an uncomfortable question: What would be God’s evaluation of me, based on my upcoming week?
And then, I asked myself an even more uncomfortable question: How should I live this week, this day, this hour, so that I will have a shot at a good evaluation?
Ouch!
So, what are my basic goals for the week, in light of the fact that I believe in an Evaluator with a capital “E”? How will I live, so that, if God had only this week to go on, God could give me a good evaluation?
I suppose that I ought to put God first. If there is such a being in and beyond the universe, that might be rather important.
Then too, there is loving other people—even (especially?) those who are difficult to love. After all, they probably need more love than other people.
There is also the matter of denying my worse self and cultivating my better self.
In many ways, my seven-day evaluation would boil down to this: Am I making good decisions moment by moment.
I am not the king of Israel, but I am the ruler of my moments. By God’s grace, perhaps I can rule them well.
“LIVING FOR THE MOMENT OR IN THE MOMENT?
My daily affirmation for today is as follows: “Today, by the grace of God, I will focus on the good stuff about God, other people, the world, and myself.”
When I sent my sponsor this affirmation, he commented, “My attention for your affirmation is focus. To me it means living in the moment.”
I replied, “Dear ______,
That is a very good point.
Living only for the moment has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past, and the results of such living persist to this day.
However, living in the moment is a very good thing.
Prepositions matter! (I think I feel a blog post coming on! Or, perhaps it’s just the flu.)”
Of course, I may be splitting grammatical/lexical hairs here. However, I don’t think so. Here is how I would differentiate between “living only for the moment” from “living in the moment.”
Living only for the moment is another way of speaking of “instant gratification.” And instant gratification doesn’t particularly gratify anyone in the long haul. This kind of “living in the moment” means manipulating other people and reality for my own short-term enjoyment. Such short-term enjoyment obviously feels good “in the moment.” If it did not, who would ever engage in it? However, the enjoyment is very short-lived.
But this form of living “for the moment” has huge long-term costs. It harms other people, and leaves an empty place in my own heart—an empty place that I try to fill by the very short-sighted, immediately gratifying attitudes and actions that created that empty place in the first place.
And voila! An addiction is born and nurtured!
Living in the moment creatively is another matter altogether. Living in the moment in this sense means experiencing the present in an open and caring manner. It means cherishing (or at least enduring) the moments as they unfold. It does not mean ripping present moments out of their larger context of relationships and future plans. Rather, this kind of holy “living in the moment” means enjoying the moments as the good gifts God has given to us.
So, for today, moment by moment, am I going to live only for the moment, or am I going to live in the moment?
And how about you?
First Things Second
No doubt you have heard—and probably said—“First things first!”
But it’s terribly easy to get off the path we know we ought to be traveling. Suddenly, first things can become second.
Consider, for example, the story of Solomon and his building projects. I was reading this account just this morning during my devotional time. I was stopped in my tracks by the very first verse I read.
“It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.” (1 Kings 7:1, NIV )
“Where on earth did the translators get the word “however” in this text?” I asked myself.
I wouldn’t say that I know Hebrew super-well, but I do know that verses are usually strung together with a simple waw. This Hebrew conjunction can often be translated “and,” but translators do often need to try another word to translate this Hebrew word.
Sure enough, it was a waw at the beginning of this word. So, how on earth did the translators decide on “however”? I decided to have a closer look. I’m glad that I did!
The translators were apparently going on word order. Hebrew word order is flexible, but generally, Hebrew prefers a verb-subject-object order. “Dog bites man,” is the English/American word order. The “normal” word order in Hebrew is “Bites dog man.” If you put the object of the verb (“man” in this simple example) first, it is usually done in order to emphasize the object.
The Hebrew word order in 1 Kings 7:1 may be translated literally as follows: “His (i.e., Solomon’s) house built Solomon.”
In other words, it is emphasized that Solomon’s own palace took thirteen years to complete, whereas the Temple of the LORD had taken only 7 years to build—a fact that had just been mentioned in the preceding verse.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that his own palace was more important than the Temple. Perhaps Solomon had even more workmen building the Temple than he had working on his palace. Perhaps. Perhaps.
However, two things make me wonder. The first is that Solomon’s palace was much larger than the Temple. Why? To accommodate all the offices and officials who would serve Solomon? To accommodate Solomon’s wives? Or there is another possibility: Did Solomon want his house, the palace, to be the biggest, most impressive building in Jerusalem?
A second thing makes me wonder. Why is it that the narratives about the furnishings of the Temple and the dedication of the Temple come only after the report of Solomon building his palace? Admittedly, Hebrew writers did not always proceed chronologically, but this literary positioning is intriguing. Might it suggest that the building of the Temple was interrupted so that Solomon could build his own palace?
Well, all of this is interesting, but by no means without doubt. But there is another thing that is surely beyond doubt: Sometimes we all get our priorities out of order. We major on minors, and minor on majors. I had a friend who said years ago, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” True that!
If God comes first, everything else will fall into its proper place—or it will fall out entirely, if it needs to. I frequently willfully forget this.
Right now, I teach as an adjunct at a Christian institution, I teach a Hebrew class, I wait tables at two different restaurants, I try to be active in my church, attempt to be a good househusband, I blog, and am trying to find time to write a book.
Too often, I don’t ask myself a crucial question: What would most honor God right now? I don’t ask the question, in part, because I don’t want to hear the answer.
If God were writing the story of my life (and maybe He is), would he chronicle what I had done to honor Him? But would God have to insert a “however,” indicating that I had been primarily interested in building my own palace?
“AFFIRMING THE PLEASURE OF GOD”
Years ago, my twelve-step sponsor encouraged me to do daily affirmations. It is a good discipline. I usually do my affirmation early in the morning. It helps to set the tone for my day. Today’s affirmation is as follows: Today, by God’s grace and with God’s help, I will seek to make it a good day for God. I will do this by trusting Him, by obeying Him, by enjoying Him, by praising Him, and by being kind to everything and everyone He has made.
One of the many ways that I sometimes go wrong is that I want God to make it a good day for Me. Some of my worst days have been the result of that attitude.
Putting anyone first means that you want to make that person happy, as much as lies within you. Of course, no one can really make another person happy unless the other really desires happiness. Some people enjoy misery, and enjoy making others miserable as well.
But God is a God who is easily pleased. Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in his name did not go unnoticed (Matthew 10:42). Now that is a God who notices and is pleased by very small acts of kindness!
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to a church in which the (dis??)members were not getting along particularly well, the church at Corinth. Actually, “not getting along particularly well” is a huge understatement. The church was a massive mess! One of their many problems was that they were focused on which of the apostles they liked the best, instead of focusing on what God had done for them and what God wanted to do in and through them.
Among other things, Paul wrote the following: “So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time– before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due” (1 Corinthians 4:5, New Living Translation).
God exposing our darkest secrets and private motives sounds pretty scary, at least to me. But Paul ends on the note of God praising us.
What?! God praising us! That can’t be right!
Yes, that is exactly what Paul said. And the God who praises us is most certainly a God who is infinitely capable of being pleased with our little attempts to please Him.
I don’t really know if I will please God today or not. But I am comforted by a prayer of Thomas Merton. I end with it. (I have bolded three sentences that especially speak to this matter of pleasing God.)
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
JESUS’ GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
“I continually give them eternal life, and they will never perish.” (John 10:28, my translation from the Greek.)
First, a technical point: The Greek present tense usually suggests some sort of continuous or ongoing reality.
The present tense of the word “give” is used in John 10:23. This likely suggests that Jesus was referring to an ongoing, continuous giving of eternal life to his followers.
Eternal life is not simply something that was given in the past, or reserved for the future. No! Eternal life is something that is granted to us in each passing moment.
It’s a good thing! If I were given all my eternal life at once, I would devour it all and ask for more. It would be like the peanut butter sandwich cookies that my sweetheart got me the other day. They are already gone.
How freeing and relaxing it is to think of Jesus giving me eternal life continually. My regular, everyday life is energized by the One I love and follow. Many things may happen today that I can’t handle, but nothing will happen to me today that Jesus’ life in me can’t face.
This gives me great hope. Of course, someday my mortal body will cease to function. That is why it is called a mortal body, for crying out loud! I am exceedingly temporary.
Of course, there is a catch. There is always a catch, isn’t there. However, Jesus does not bury the proviso in a footnote in fine print. In the verse right before verse 28 (which, strangely enough, is verse 27) Jesus says the following: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” If we are following God as best we can at any given moment, we can rest in the assurance that we are never far from his kingdom. Eternal life becomes a reality for us the moment we obey.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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