JUDGES 7
God knows all about us... and still He loves us. There are a couple of beautiful little examples of that in this chapter. Gideon is getting ready to attack the Midianites. He starts out with 32,000 for the job, but God eventually whittles it down to 300. That’s a little less than one percent of Gideon’s original army. Yikes!
JUDGES 6
If you’re one of the people who reads this blog every day but doesn’t necessarily read the Bible chapter that goes with it, I urge you to read Judges 6. I am nearly beside myself with delight at the picture of God in this chapter. The Israelites are at their idol worship once again, when God realizes that there is a man—Gideon—who has a willingness to listen. Even though he has grown up in a home where his father worshiped Baal and Asherah, Gideon is apparently open in his heart to an audience with the Lord.
JUDGES 5
In Judges 5, Deborah and Barak burst into song over their victory against King Jabin and Sisera. Tucked away into this rather interesting song is a rather interesting piece of information: some of the tribes of Israel ignored the call to go to war. Instead of aiding their Israelite brothers, they stayed home. "The rulers of Issachar came along with Deborah, and Issachar followed Barak into the valley. But the tribe of Reuben was no help at all! Reuben, why did you stay among your sheep pens? Was it to listen to shepherds whistling for their sheep? No one could figure out why Reuben wouldn’t come. The people of Gilead stayed across the Jordan. Why did the tribe of Dan remain on their ships and the tribe of Asher stay along the coast near the harbors?" (vs 15-17)
JUDGES 4
This chapter bears an example of something I really love about God. Because of their idolatry, the people of Israel had been under the cruel oppression of Jabin (king of Canaan) and his commander, Sisera, for twenty years. They were worn out. They were beaten down. Verse three says they cried out to God for help.
JUDGES 3
What would happen if you went in your kitchen right now, turned on the stovetop, and put your hand on the burner? You’d burn your hand, of course. And how do you know you’d burn your hand if you touched a hot stove? Probably because you or someone you know has had just such an unpleasant experience in the past. And that’s how we learn that touching a hot stove is dangerous and can harm us.
Perhaps Jesus said the Kingdom was for children
because children accept their lot in life.
Often, they don't know any different
and even if they did,
what can they do about it?
Children accept
and try to find ways of being content.
Adults, on the other hand,
have learned better?
and have trouble accepting
what they don't want or can't understand.
Er wouldn't accept a mantle of morality.
Onan wouldn't accept a surrogate's role.
Judah wouldn't accept the position of widower.
Shelah wouldn't accept his brothers' leftovers.
Tamar wouldn't accept childless singlehood.
It's no wonder, then, that
centuries later,
Mary is called "favored of God"
and chosen as the one
to bear the burden of raising the Savior.
For how many people—
even in the very pages of sacred Scripture—
ever responded
to what they didn't want or couldn't understand
by saying
Let it be to me according to your will?
We so idolize those who
won't acquiesce
refuse to bow down
fight back
stick it to the man
get angry
that we are blind
to the holiness that comes with
accepting the lot we wouldn't choose—
if only it were up to us.
JUDGES 2
This text shocked me: "After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel." (vs 10) What?! God finally had a generation of Israelites that He could take into the Promised Land.... and it only took one generation to unravel it all. Unbelievable.
JUDGES 1
The first chapter of the book of Judges chronicles more of the war conquests of Israel. And as I read the various accounts, I thought about how God helps us fight. Of course, these were accounts of actual fighting, and we may not find ourselves out on the battlefield, but God helps us fight in other areas of our lives. When we need spiritual help, God fights for us. When we need emotional help, God fights for us. And whenever we align ourselves with God’s will, He helps us fight... and we always win.
JOSHUA 24
Here we find Joshua’s famous words to the Israelites: "Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (vs 14-15)
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Oh, the dreams! The bowing down!
The humbled faces on the ground!
A jealous sibling's lightning rod
(those dreams) but they had come from God!
He knew the visions would be told;
He knew that Joseph would be sold;
He saw a famine on the way
and hatched a plan to save the day.
Egypt thought they'd bought a mule,
but Joseph had been sent to rule.
Joseph's God is your God, too.
He has a future planned for you:
Never doubt it's bright and beaming—
What new dreams have you been dreaming?
Sonnet: A poem consisting of 14 lines with a particular rhyming scheme.
JOSHUA 23
I just love how, sometimes, the tiniest things jump out at me. Here’s one for today: "Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left." (vs 6) Here’s something that’s hard for us to remember sometimes: Every road has two ditches—one on the left and one on the right. God doesn’t want us to end up in either of them. He wants us to travel the middle of the road, where He is.
JOSHUA 22
I have recently written on this blog about God’s penchant for evidence. He doesn’t arbitrarily make judgments, nor does He jump to conclusions. He always examines the evidence. So, it seemed fitting to bring out this point about God in contrast to how the Israelites were behaving in this chapter of Joshua.
JOSHUA 20
So, the cities of refuge are finally established in Israel—you know, the places a person could flee if they had accidentally caused a person’s death and were on the run from the blood avenger. In the city of refuge, they would find a haven where they would be safe; there, they would be given the opportunity for a hearing on the incident in question.
JOSHUA 19
If you’re like me, you’re probably starting to wonder, what is the big deal with all these land allotment details? It’s one thing to say that Israel inherited the Promised Land. It’s quite another thing to devote chapters and chapters to detailing every single boundary of every single tribe in Israel.
JOSHUA 18
Here’s how Joshua 18 begins: "The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there." (vs 1) Finally, the Tabernacle of the Lord was assembled in the Promised Land—at Shiloh. It remained there for more than 200 years, until the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines.
Photo © Unsplash/Jenn Evelyn-Ann
Esau is known as the one
who sold his birthright
and forfeited his blessing—
not the one "favored" by God,
not the one destined to be in that family tree,
not one of the "children of promise."
As between him and his brother Jacob,
Esau was not the "blessed" one,
but have you ever read a more blessed genealogy
in the entire Bible?
No barren women,
no tragedies,
no hardships,
no scandals,
no poverty—in fact, the opposite—
so much wealth the family had to move to a larger land.
By contrast, those "blessed" of God
met frequent hardship and troubles—
their genealogies littered with innumerable obstacles:
barrenness, injustice, illness, death.
It was after, after! Jacob decided to
fulfill his vow to God
commit his life to the Lord and
return to the sacred place of his Creator
that his family was besieged by
sickness and unexpected death—
burying, in rapid succession,
first Deborah, then Rachel, then Isaac.
Is burden a blessing?
Is blessing a burden?
How is it they stroll together so comfortably
hand in hand
like lovers on a Sunday afternoon
in the park?
JOSHUA 17
Ah, now the failures of Israel are coming back to bite them. By turns, before going into the Promised Land, the Lord told the Israelites that they should not make any treaties with the people living there, but that they should be completely driven out. First, God promised to drive them out Himself. When the Israelites didn’t want to go along with that (but instead wanted to fight), God told them they must destroy the nations they conquered.
JOSHUA 16
Did you think the lottery was a modern invention? Well, it isn’t. At least not according to the Bible. It dawned on me today, as I was reading Joshua 16, that the parcels of land in Canaan were being doled out to the various tribes via a lottery (or, the casting of lots). It seems that the Israelites did this quite a bit, and it was a practice still in use when the Roman soldiers famously cast lots for Jesus’ clothing as He hung on the cross.
JOSHUA 15
One of my all-time favorite Bible verses has always been Jeremiah 29:11—"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I always thought that the "plans" meant a whole series of sequenced events, intended to make my life into a sweeping, glorious tapestry from start to finish. And perhaps that’s exactly what it means.
