A Year of Sundays: Week 6

Sunday 6: The Second Sunday of Christmas

Enter any major mall in the month of December and you will find a Santa Claus photo op. At my local mall, I was shocked to see the line of customers wind and stretch through the corner of the mall where Santa was located. Parents deal with crying, tired children for the fun moment when Santa looks down at the child and asks "What would you like for Christmas?" Parents lean in to hear the child's request, hoping it is something that they can provide.

In this context there seems to be a sort of familiarity to today's Old Testament reading. God approaches King Solomon in a dream and tells him “Ask for whatever you want me to give you” (1 Kings 3:5, NIV).

If we are being honest, we probably love the idea of God offering us the equivalent of a blank check. The season is inundated with it! We pull the wish bone and breaks in our favor - fate has fallen in our favor. We feel like we have the right to ask Santa for something because we have been good boys and girls. We make resolutions and promise to ourselves that we will make our goals come true because we are strong enough to take care of ourselves.  Lord, help us.

Solomon knew himself well enough to know what he really needed, so he told God:

Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:7-9, NIV)

Solomon's request was incredibly humble.  He had enough discernment to know a major task laid before him, yet he asked for [more] wisdom.

God was pleased with Solomon's request. He did not ask for something that benefitted him or that crippled his enemy. He asked for that which would benefit God's people, and was rewarded with personal benefit as well.

As I consider the things I ask God for, I must ask myself what my motivation is.  Do I ask for things which benefit others, or do I ask for things that appear to benefit others while really hoping God will give me what I want for myself instead? 

I pray for discernment as I consider these things.

The People We Pray Quietly For

When I was a teenager, I loved attending Sunday night church. Sunday morning church services had a certain feeling. To me, there was a formality, a reverence to the gathering time. Sunday evenings, on the other hand, were more casual. I could wear jeans and a sweater. The format varied from week to week, and sometimes we had extended periods of prayer. As I think about it, I'm pretty confident that every week the pastor would call for people to share their prayer requests.

Figuratively, and sometimes literally, there were prayer requests shouted out. My neighbor is dying. My child is straying. I'm facing unemployment. My back is acting up.  Sometimes there was another kind of prayer request. This other kind was different.  For any number of reasons a person would not share the details of his or her prayer request. A person would just say: Unspoken.

I always struggled with unspoken prayer requests. Of course my teenage self wanted to know what gossip-worthy thing was happening in the person's life. Not that I intended to gossip. I just wanted to know. My adult self knows better. My adult self now understands.

The unspoken prayers were the ones that were most personal to you.

The unspoken prayers were the ones you didn't want to utter because it would make them true.

The unspoken prayers were the ones you couldn't even whisper.

But I thank God He knows our innermost thoughts.  He is the God who hears our prayers when the words come out as unintelligible screams and when they can't be whispered, when they come out unspoken.  Yes, He is the God of the whisper.

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart

and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
(1 Kings 19:11-12, NIV)

Solomon's Rise and Fall

It's strange to think that it's been almost five years since I stopped working full time.  I had never known anything other than being a working wife and mother, and my career had been a blessing from God that generously provided for my family.  When I chose to walk away from it, I knew it was at God's prompting.  Oh, sure, I was intrigued by the idea that I'd have free time to pick up a hobby or have dates with my husband on his days off, but I was scared of as many things. I still hold a special place in my heart for those fourteen years that I worked in real estate.  I learned so many things and met great people, but those good things were always clouded with a darkness that is hard to articulate. When the time came, I knew that if I didn't leave then, what had helped develop me as a person would soon destroy me.

I think of Solomon, who worked in Biblical real estate.  He was born to a father who longed to build God a temple.  David was convicted that he lived in a home while God lived a tent.  (Read the account here: 2 Samuel.)  God's plans were not for David to build His temple, but rather for his son Solomon. David did as much as he could.  He collected the supplies, but it was Solomon who would build.

Solomon was blessed by God. Being born a prince, he had a good start in life. He had all the earthly blessings one could dream of: wealth, wisdom, and love. In fact, he found love over and over again. And again. And again after that:

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. (1 Kings 11:1-8, NIV)

It's hard to know when to stop building. If Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, he may have built hundreds or thousands of altars to false gods. All God wanted was for him to build one.  

God has given me a temple to build, just like He has given you one. It is a monument to God that will bring Him honor and glory.  We must be careful to hold fast only to God.  Otherwise what brings us up will evengtually bring us down.

FMF: Forward

Hope looks forward and finds peace.  Consider the woman from Shunem:

He said, “Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.”

And she said, “It will be well.” Then she saddled a donkey and said to her servant, “Drive and go forward; do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you.” So she went and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel.

When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Behold, there is the Shunammite. Please run now to meet her and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’”

And she answered, “It is well.”  (2 Kings 4: 23-26, NASB)

Her hope doesn't make sense.  That is the essence of hope.

For the Shunammite woman, hope literally meant moving forward, to the prophet Elisha, for healing for her son.  She had not always had this kind of hope.  Earlier in this chapter we read that it was the prophet Elisha, through God's power, who allowed her to have a son.  Back then, she didn't have the hope inside of her to ask for what she really wanted, and she warned Elisha not to get her hopes up.  She looked back.  She saw all the years she had been unable to conceive.  She believed no child would be in her future because no child had been in her past.  When the Shunammite woman was unable to look forward, Elisha looked forward on her behalf.  He had hope for her when she was hopeless.  What a different woman than one we see here.

Her son has just died, and the Shunammite woman tells her husband that she will be going to Elisha to fix the situation.  Like the Shunammite woman years earlier, her husband can not look forward.  He looks back.  He wants to know why she would go to Elisha for healing on a day that is not traditionally a day of healing. He was stuck in the past.

And there it is: You are either stuck in the past of looking forward to the future.  Those of us who look forward, and consequently move forward, can say like the Shunammite woman, "It is well."

This post is a prompt from Five Minute Friday and was written in approximately five minutes. For more information, visit fiveminutefriday.com.

My 100

The number 100 appears frequently in the Bible. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born to him (Genesis 21). The courtyard of the temple was 100 cubits on the north/south side (Exodus 17). The Israelite army would be able to fight 100 men with only five if obedient to God (Leviticus 26). The penalty for slandering a woman after marrying her was 100 shekels and the inability to divorce her... #awkward (Deuteronomy 22). Jacob bought a burial property for 100 shekels, and Joseph was eventually buried there (Joshua 24). Saul requested a dowry of 100 foreskins from David, and was paid two hundred... #superawkward (1 Samuel). Obadiah hid 100 of God's prophets in caves to protect them (1 Kings 18). The unnamed man's offering feeds 100 people (2 Kings 4). There were 100 gold sprinkling bowls in the temple (2 Chronicles 4).

Jesus also used the number in His parables. Jesus says the Word is a like a seed that will produce a crop 100, sixty, or thirty fold (Mark 4). Jesus says that He, like a man who owns 100 sheep, would leave ninety-nine to fine one that is lost (Luke 15). Jesus compares human forgiveness to a servant whose master forgave his debt of ten thousand bags of gold but would not forgive his co-worker who owed him 100 silver coins (Matthew 18).

There's another 100 that doesn't get the same glory some of these other verses get. It's easy for me to read about Abraham receiving his blessing at 100 or even laugh about David's dowry payment, and I love to read Jesus' parables as both spiritual wisdom and well crafted literature. However, I don't often turn to Revelation when I open the Bible.

I took a New Testament class my second semester in college. As we approached Revelation, Professor Bob Smith told us that we would be reading the book in its entirety during class.  Instead of sitting at the desks of our basement level class, we would be lounging in the cafeteria to read it one sitting.  The other lectures all blur together; that one stands out.

In chapter sixteen, the seven bowls of God's wrath are poured out on earth. Terrible things happen, but the people refuse to repent and glorify God. It reminds me of the Egyptian plagues on steroids. If I'm being honest, I really struggle with this passage. I'm pretty stubborn, and I'm not sure that festering sores would make me worship God. I guess that's the problem: I don't allow difficulties to draw me to God the way they should.

The seven bowls are poured out, the kings meet together at Armageddon (after the sixth bowl, to be accurate), and a voice comes from the temple saying "It is done!" Don't get this confused with Christ's proclamation on the cross "It is finished!" This voice in Revelation is more like how we might say "well, that happened." Then come the lightning, thunder, an earthquake, and (are you ready for it?) 100 pound hailstones. Not a 100 pound hailstone - hailstones, plural. Not only did the people refuse to bless God because of these hailstones, they actually caused the people to curse Him.

I don't know if any of the difficult things going on in our lives are mini-bowls of wrath (shot glasses of wrath?). I don't know why things happen or why God operates the way He does. However, I know that every day is an opportunity to repent, to glorify God, and to seek His will in my life.

So on this, my 100th blog post, let me say: Don't wait for 100 pound hailstones.

Waiting for the Whisper

Confession time: It's 8am, and I don't want to wake up my kids. I'm sitting in my dining room, enjoying a cup of coffee, and knowing it will be the last quiet I experience for hours. There are no distractions right now. There are no requirements of me. Even the plants in my backyard are standing still.

When I read Scripture, I often turn to the big, theatrical moments that show God's power. The Flood (Genesis 6-8). The Four Men in the the Fire (Daniel 3). Elijah vs the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). Those are huge stories that make being on God's team exciting. If I were giving out awards, this account of Elijah would get the award for Best Trash Talk in the Bible. [Insert award show clip of Elijah asking if Baal is using the bathroom.] He calls down fire from heaven. He kills the prophets of Baal. He prays the rain out of the sky.  Elijah is BA (Bible Awesome).

By the next chapter, Elijah appears to have lost his prophet-warrior status. He is a normal guy who has made enemies (they happen to be the king and queen), and he is scared. He runs to the desert, leaving behind his servant and eventually making his way to a cave on Mount Horeb. God asks Elijah why he is there. Elijah tells God that His people have turned against Him, he is the only one left, and they are trying to kill him. He's exaggerating a bit, but I fully trust that he believed what he was saying. Most of us are the same way. Think about how often fights include "you never" or "you always." This is when the story takes an unexpected, yet tender, turn:

"The Lord said, 'Go out. Stand on the mountain in front of me. I am going to pass by.' As the Lord approached, a very powerful wind tore the mountains apart. It broke up the rocks. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire came. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire. And after the fire there was only a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his coat over his face. He went out and stood at the entrance to the cave" (1 Kings 19:11-13, NIRV).

Did Elijah expect to encounter the God who rains down fire, for whom the earth trembles? I think so. Instead, God reveals another part of Himself, the gentle Abba - father, daddy - who sits down next to His upset child, picks him up, and places him on His knee. God asks Elijah, again, why he is there, and Elijah's response is the same. The words are the same, but the conversation is different.

God tells Elijah to get back to work: anoint a king for Aram, anoint a king for Israel, anoint Elisha as the next prophet. Go get your squad, one might say. These were the guys who were going to support Elijah in the work God wanted him to do. #squadgoals.

Elijah would no longer be alone.  He had kings, a prophet, and 7,000 Israelites on his team. But more importantly, he had God on his team. Or, more accurately, he was on God's team. So, Elijah went.

Today, many people are shut in their homes, but their spirits are in a cave on Mount Horeb. To them I say, wait for the whisper.

Wait for the whisper.

Wait.

Dream Bigger

Back in 2013 the California Lottery had a marketing slogan that bothered me quite a bit. I recall thinking that the lottery was offering more hope than the modern American church. It was a simultaneously ridiculous and accurate notion. Our country was still battling the effects of the Great Recession: record high unemployment, government instability, threat of war, and general skepticism of the structures of our society. In the middle of that turmoil, the California Lottery was telling us to Dream Bigger.

It wasn't a bad message, except for the fact that it was being delivered by an organization with more than a 99.9999% failure rate. Not great odds.

There are two kinds of dreams. One type of dream occurs during sleep. Scripture is filled with people who heard from God while they were sleeping:

• Abimelech learned through a dream that this wife was married to another man (Genesis 20).
• Joseph had a series of dreams that set into motion a chain of events that would save his family and move the people of Israel to Egypt (Genesis 37).
• Solomon had a full conversation with God in his dreams: God asked Solomon what he would like from Him, Solomon asked for understanding and discernment, and God promises that he will receive what he asked for as well as riches (1 Kings 3).
• The wise men were warned in a dream not to return to King Herod (Matthew 2).
• Joseph, the step-father of Christ, had a dream to marry Mary, then had a dream to take the young Christ to Egypt, and then had yet another dream to bring his family back to their  native land (Matthew 1-2).
• Because of a troubling dream she had, Pilate's wife knew that Pilate should not get involved in the crucifixion of Christ (Matthew 27).

The other kind of dream is a dream of the heart (we sometimes say plans, goals, or ideas).  I haven't traditionally associated these heart-dreams with God. It's not that my dreams were evil; it's that I never allowed myself to dream much. I see, now, that it was a lack of faith. I'm thinking of one particular dream I have (but please forgive me, I am not ready to share it yet). When the idea first crossed my mind, it actually made me sad. Instead of thinking, "Yes, God. Let's do that!" I was filled with sorrow that "That will never be me." It's been at least ten years, and I still don't know how that dream would happen, but I have faith in God that it can.  No... I have faith in God that it will.