Author: LizG

2 Kings 6:24; 7:3-10 MSG At a later time, this: Ben-Hadad king of Aram pulled together his troops and launched a siege on Samaria. This brought on a terrible famine, so bad that food prices soared astronomically. Eighty shekels for a donkey’s head! Five shekels for a bowl of field greens! … It happened that four lepers were sitting just outside the city gate. They said to one another, “What are we doing sitting here at death’s door? If we enter the famine-struck city we’ll die; if we stay here we’ll die. So let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us we’ll live, if they kill us we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

So after the sun went down they got up and went to the camp of Aram. When they got to the edge of the camp, surprise! Not a man in the camp! The Master had made the army of Aram hear the sound of horses and a mighty army on the march. They told one another, “The king of Israel hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to attack us!” Panicked, they ran for their lives through the darkness, abandoning tents, horses, donkeys—the whole camp just as it was—running for dear life. These four lepers entered the camp and went into a tent. First they ate and drank. Then they grabbed silver, gold, and clothing, and went off and hid it. They came back, entered another tent, and looted it, again hiding their plunder. Finally they said to one another, “We shouldn’t be doing this! This is a day of good news and we’re making it into a private party! If we wait around until morning we’ll get caught and punished. Come on! Let’s go tell the news to the king’s palace!” So they went and called out at the city gate, telling what had happened: “We went to the camp of Aram and, surprise!—the place was deserted. Not a soul, not a sound! Horses and donkeys left tethered and tents abandoned just as they were.”

Observation

This is one of my benches on the path of life, a place I stop and listen and reflect on Who and What I allow God to be and do in my life.  It reminds me always that God is not limited by what I consider possible but able to do exceedingly, abundantly above what I can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Let’s look at this story.

Ben-Hadad is the king of Aram-Damascus has come to conquer Samaria, a territory ruled by King Arab of Israel. Both of these men are bad kings, ruthless, idolaters.  Ben-Hadad has surrounded the city for a long enough period of time to create such famine within the city walls that people are eating human flesh to survive. The prophet Elisha has predicted a sudden and complete overturn from famine to feasting through God’s miraculous intervention. This seems unbelievable and impossible even for God. Enter the four lepers into the story.

Lepers were pariahs, shunned, usually forced to live away from the general public, often wretchedly poor and malnourished without family caring for them. True leprosy affects the nerves and lepers often lost fingers, toes, noses, and became lame or otherwise struggled physically. There would have been no hope for food from inside the city during the famine. As they look at their options:   “What are we doing sitting here at death’s door? If we enter the famine-struck city we’ll die; if we stay here we’ll die. So let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us we’ll live, if they kill us we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose.”  So, close your eyes and imagine it – four hobbling, shuffling starving beggars struggle to their feet and head off toward the enemy camp.  Here is where God enters the picture.

Over in the enemy camp, “The Master had made the army of Aram hear the sound of horses and a mighty army on the march.”  This is miraculous, something impossible without the direct intervention of God. Every soldier in the army of Aram panicked and fled leaving behind all of their equipment and supplies, enough to feed the entire city that was in famine.

Impact on Me

So, I come and sit at this bench often to contemplate this story because I am reminded of several critically important keys about Who and What I need to be and do to allow God to be large in and through my life.

First, God is not limited by my Possibility Box; He wants me to experience and live in His wide open possibilities no matter how impossible it may seem to me.

Second, it is better to be obedient than ready or fully equipped. Who else would choose the weakest, most despised outcasts to save the entire city? (I am always reminded here of Jesus’ crucifixion – the most shameful of deaths – that was always God’s way to save us.)

Third, look past the skin, the current condition, of a person and seek to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit to encourage, bless and assist him or her to become what God dreams for him or her. I am sure there is so much more for me to learn and pray that I will on future quiet times on this bench.

Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, merciful and gracious, wonderful and so, so good, help me to stop at the benches You set in my life to sit, listen and contemplate what You would have me understand.  Will I ever understand reason for the pathways on which you lead me?  Will I ever stop worrying about my ability to do what You ask and trust absolutely in Your ability to equip me as needed to accomplish Your will and purpose?  Will I ever stop telling You how and what should be done and instead ask You what You would have me do and be in every circumstance?  Remind me always about this story and how simple it is to just be obedient and leave choosing the team, the plan and the execution to You.  Make it so. Amen.

Isaiah 9:2-7 NIV  The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Observation

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity.”  No matter what translation you use, this place in Scripture is arresting.  In these times of upheaval, war and tragedy, doesn’t your soul ache for peace that will never end and One Who can truly rule with peace, fairness and justice?  It seems so impossible, so hopeless, when we look at our turbulent world, our own society’s norms and sense of security up ended, the anger and division evident in public demonstrations, all the trauma from broken relationships, war, natural disasters, and terror attacks. Doesn’t your heart cry out for a respite, time to recover, freedom from being on the alert every moment, a return to feeling safe and secure?  How do we answer when asked, “Where is God?  How can a good God allow this to happen?” The “fixing” of it all seems insurmountable. Where would one even start?

Impact on Me

I think each of us starts with considering and judging our own condition and where each one of us stands with Jesus because He was always – even before creation – God’s answer, God’s fix, God’s eternal unfailing King of peace, fairness and justice. Every Christmas when I hear this Scripture, I have to ask myself who is my king, to whom am I submitted, where is my hope, on whom can I depend?  I can be ruled and moved by earthly governments, powers, authorities, circumstances or by the One called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  I can be first a citizen of the United States or first a citizen of Heaven. I make that choice. Jesus was born and lived under two oppressive, unjust, murderous ruling powers – the Romans and the Sanhedrin – but, through faithfulness and obedience to God’s rule, His plan, managed to become the pivot point on which my (and your) eternal destination rests because He simply chose to be first a citizen of Heaven. 

I do not ignore my responsibilities as a citizen of my country and am not unmoved by the actions of earthly ruling authorities; I strive to honor God in obeying the laws and praying for unity and my leaders to be ruled by Heaven (rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s). I also remember Daniel’s prayer (see below) and find peace and comfort in knowing that, regardless of the circumstances – what I see and how we as people have messed things up – God controls the destiny of all nations and people. Because He has assigned me in the United States, He has a purpose for me here and, if I will be like Jesus and choose to be first a citizen of Heaven in all I do, perhaps others will chose to emigrate and also become citizens of Heaven. All of this is possible because this child was born to us, given to us as a gift. What an awesome gift He is!

Prayer

Lord, Savior, Immanuel, Perfect Lamb, You came as a baby with Your future set out before creation.  Never let me forget that Christmas was the beginning of the fulfillment of this Scripture, Immanuel coming to earth to dwell among us.  I choose to set my heart, soul and mind to be always first a citizen of Heaven, to put my hope in You as the One Who controls all destinies, to put my faith in the One You have chosen to rule and allow His light to pierce the darkness around me, to embrace this Son given to us and rejoice as I allow His kingdom to rule in me and spill over on everyone I meet, everyone I hug, everyone who will hear You speak through me. I pray this all in the name of Jesus. Make it so.

Daniel 2:20-23 NIV  Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.

Matthew 6:9-15 AMP  ⁹ Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.  ¹⁰  Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread.  ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors [letting go of both the wrong and the resentment].  ¹³ And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]’

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others [nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God], then your Father will not forgive your trespasses.

Observation

We memorize verses 9-13 above at a very young age.  This is Jesus teaching His disciples how to pray simply and effectively.  How very rarely we include in that memorization the 2 verses following this familiar passage. We need to take note that some version of the word “forgive” (e.g., forgiven, forgiveness) appears 40 times in the Gospels.  As Messiah, Jesus lived and died for forgiveness and salvation to flow into and out of us freely.  According to Jesus, the unwillingness to forgive leads to “nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God.” This results in leaving our own sins unforgiven. Jesus is not asking us to forgive only because it will release someone else.  He is asking us to forgive because ultimately it releases, frees and heals us. 

Jesus’ meaning of verses 14-15 are expanded by Him in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18).  The servant who was forgiven much and released from his debt proceeded to unmercifully turn with unforgiveness on his own debtor who owed little.  This story tells us that his lack of gratitude and withholding of mercy was noticed and ended up with his huge debt being reinstated.  The Bible Point of this story is Matthew 6:14-15!   This does not mean that we condone sin.  Absolutely not!  It does mean that we approach and deal with sin in love with healed hearts because we have forgiven and released the hurt.

Impact on Me

Forgiving others is often not easy.  It can be easier when I believe the injury was accidental or caused by a misinterpretation or when the person is expressing regret or sorrow over the hurt.  However, when I am hurt or embarrassed or shamed by another who is not asking for forgiveness or caring about the injury to me – in other words, “their reckless and willful sins” which make them not innocent in my sight – this is a different matter.  That voice inside that wants to lead me astray will say, “They don’t deserve to be forgiven!” or “Teach them a lesson by hurting them back!” or “It is your right to hold a grudge.”  But, I believe that leads to “nurturing your hurt and anger with the result that it interferes with your relationship with God.”

I have had many opportunities in my life to withhold forgiveness – times when I was unjustly accused or a target of anger or otherwise hurt, embarrassed or shamed.  The Holy Spirit made me aware in these times that Jesus did not qualify forgiving with “for those who deserve it”.  The servant who owed much did not deserve to have his debt forgiven.  It was because he would not be merciful and forgiving in gratitude for his release that his debt returned upon him.  Don’t I have the same choice?  I gladly receive the salvation and forgiveness provided by Jesus on the Cross – given when I did not deserve it because of my reckless and willful sins.  How can I be selfish with mercy and forgiveness for others in that same place when He was so generous with me?    

Prayer

Lord God, Everlasting Father, Redeemer, Teacher, Lover of my soul, the only inside voice I want to hear is Yours.  When I want to be selfish with mercy, grace and forgiveness, remind me of my filthy condition when I first came to embrace Your salvation.  Help me to see past the ugliness that is the evidence of a soul in anguish because it has not yet embraced You.  May Your love, grace, mercy and forgiveness be my story and the epitaph of my life.  Make it so, in Jesus’ name.

Romans 15:13 NIV May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 JBP May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in your faith, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, your whole life and outlook may be radiant with hope.

Romans 15:13 MSG Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

Romans 15:13 AMP May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Observation

I first found this verse when I was in a hospital ICU waiting room in 1984. Our 15-year-old daughter had been in a serious car accident.  One of her spinal vertebrates was crushed.  The prognosis was “best case” that she would have serious organ and nerve damage causing her to never walk again.  The “worst case” was she would be quadriplegic.  There was no way for the doctors at the beginning of this journey to predict what other organ or soft tissue damage might be revealed later related to the accident.  We just had to wait and see.  Also, at the time, we were self-employed in the fishing industry.  We had no health insurance because it was prohibitively expensive (both because of our industry and self-employment).   We were facing months in the hospital.  We had every human reason to feel hopeless and helpless. We needed nothing less than a multi-faceted miracle.

Both my husband and I had grown up in church. However, our understanding of God was that His holiness created a great chasm that kept Him distant, aloof and disappointed in our human weaknesses. Thankfully, we had embraced a personal relationship with Jesus just one year prior to this event.   The only carrying-sized Bible I owned was an Amplified version.  I liked this version because I was new to reading Scripture and the Amplified version gave me more insight into the shades of meaning in the original words, something other translations didn’t provide.  While sitting in that ICU waiting room, I was particularly interested in what God had to say about hope – something in such very short supply – so I was arrested by this verse. How could my hope “abound and be overflowing (bubbling over)” in that hospital ICU?

Impact on Me

The idea of an approachable God was totally new to me. I grew up knowing that God was holy, all powerful and untouchable – a good God, but inaccessible, not involved personally or intimately with my life. I knew that Jesus had died for our sins, but had no sense of being individually forgiven or His eyes on me as His beloved.  I began to hope against hope that this verse was true – that God cared about me, would hear me, would respond to my need, would forgive and overcome my weakness, would even be miraculous in this circumstance. I was not brave, courageous, wise or full of faith; I was desperate, with nowhere else to turn.  Yet in that moment, our gracious, loving, amazing God filled me with His hope and proceeded to provide miraculously for us. I found that “desperate, with nowhere else to turn” was my best place to be because it opened the floodgates of Heaven to fill my emptiness with hope and faith. Yes, we did get a miracle or two – physical and financial.

In this experience I learned that God does not want OR need me to be seasoned or perfect in faith, obedience, motive or “strong” enough to figure out how to fix it, overcome in my own strength. work it out on my own, or help Him by coming up with my own plan in place of His. He simply asks me ALWAYS to need Him, to turn to and seek Him, to rely on Him, to listen to and obey Him, to trust Him in all circumstances, to be that living sacrifice of Romans 12:1 knowing that the cost to me will be worth the benefit to Him, His kingdom and, ultimately, to me. I demonstrate my gratitude by believing, trusting and obeying His word when I am desperate and when I things are going well.

PRAYER

Lord God, You are Holy, majestic, eternal, all-powerful, all-merciful, all-loving, ever faithful. The greatest joy of my life is to know that I am Yours and You are mine, that I am Your beloved. May I trust that You are still working all things together for good when life seems to be chaotic and painful. May I see with the eyes of Jesus, Who saw beyond the pain and suffering of His death to the glory, grace, redemption, salvation, and healing it would unleash.  May I always submit all I am and do to You, keeping in sync with Your plans and Your will and purpose for me so that You will be glorified in my life. Give me the courage to choose to say “Yes” and to continue in that “Yes” regardless of personal cost.  Make it so, praying all in the name of Jesus.

Matthew 5:13-16 NIV 13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 You are the light of the world.  A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16 MSG. Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

Observation

I love the Sermon on the Mount!  We are told so many times throughout the Bible in broad and general terms to love, serve, honor, and obey God. In these 3 chapters of Matthew, Jesus lays out clearly some real, practical, difficult, often seemingly impossible instructions on how to love, serve, honor, and obey God in our day-to-day living!  (See also a similar passage from Romans 12 below.). Not surprisingly, we are challenged by this teaching to exchange our human perspective for Jesus’ point of view:

* responding according to the heart of God to life’s challenges, events, experiences, relationship ups and downs,

* submitting our lives, our status, our social acceptance, our resources and even our futures in a way that fulfills God’s will and purposes rather than our own,

* becoming the lantern through which His light shines clearly and the salt that enhances His flavor in all our actions and words. 

We are asked to “simply” exchange our earthly culture for a heavenly one – offering up our substance, our pride, our accomplishments, our status, our rights, our very lives to fulfill God’s will and purpose through worshipping Him and serving others (both lovable and unlovable).  This is not so simple or easy for us – trusting God enough to be willing to trade all temporal, real, tangible, experiential rewards for the invisible eternal rewards promised by God. It is especially challenging for us as Americans raised in a culture that values and praises personal achievement, visible productivity, recognizable individual accomplishment, and personal rights and freedoms.  We also cherish and don’t easily lay down those rights and freedoms we feel we have earned, deserved or received as a privilege of being born here.

This teaching of Jesus will ask us to exchange:

• judgment with mercy,
• bravado and pride with humility,
• selfishness with selflessness,
• storing up with sacrificial giving,
• traditions of compromise with simple pure worship and service, and
• surrendering my plan for my life in order to submit to His plan for me.

In making these choices, we will allow the Holy Spirit to clean off the glass of the lantern of me through which Jesus shines.  It will also allow Him to make us into the seasoning that brings out the flavor of God without us judging which conclave of darkness deserves the light and who gets to sit at the table to eat. 

We all are simply asked to embrace the redemptive, loving, gracious heart of God toward “whosoever will come” by demonstrating our love and trust in Him and His plan for each of us through our investment of time, talent and resources (and setting aside our rights) in loving, serving and following Him by selflessly serving others – both friend and foe.  He is asking us to exchange the natural for the supernatural, the temporal for the eternal, the imperfect life here for the perfect life in Christ.

Impact on Me

I characterize myself as a recovering over-achieving perfectionist who relapses more often than I like to admit. While I find so many of the instructions in the Sermon on the Mount to be hard to embrace, this sermon is in red letters in my Bible and, therefore, Jesus speaking to me.  It should be so simple to just be the lantern, to just keep the glass clean and clear so Jesus can shine through to pierce the darkness and redeem and rescue whomever will respond, but like so many other humans now and in all history, I find myself complicating matters sometimes by hankering after a more visible, productive, important or prestigious role in the Light-bearing or by judging which person deserves to be invited to sit at the table and taste to see that the Lord is good. 

Another complication arises when I allow the glass of my lantern to become obscured with filth – sin, judgment, pride, a desire for recognition, the decoration of religious traditions, or the praise of men.  Or I neglect to clean my own glass because I am criticizing the glass cleaning of others around me (that removing a splinter from another’s eye when I have a telephone pole in my own). In all of this, I dim or distort the Light which is Jesus because I am forgetting what a privilege it is for me to be included in the Light-bearing process at all! 

If I were lost in the darkness, I would not care about whether the light was a lighthouse, flashlight, a lantern, a candle. I would see the light alone as my way out of the darkness.  As salt, I need to be a mere sprinkle so as not to overwhelm the flavor of the true spirit and soul food that is Christ. So, my challenge is:

• to keep it simple,
• to keep the glass of my lantern so clean, clear and unobstructed that I am invisible as He shines through me,
• to be a pinch of salt so that my life enhances the taste of God it provides,
• to remember that my role is designed by God and the perfect way for me to fulfill His will and purpose in my life and the lives around me.
  
  So, it appears my choice is either, “Yes, Lord, help me to submit to Your teaching, allow You to change me, so I will see with Your eyes, love with Your heart, obey Your instruction and become more like You,” or “No thanks. Too hard. Not interested. Can’t trust that You are faithful and able to come through.  I’ve got my own plans, rights and freedoms that I am not willing to give up. I’ll go with what seems reasonable, acceptable, doable – what seems right in my own eyes.”  When I lay it out this way, there is only one choice, a choice that is only possible because God has the grace to forgive me when I fail and sustain, strengthen, renew, refresh, change, teach me through the power and presence of His Holy Spirit working in and through me. 

Prayer

Lord God, Gracious and Merciful Father, may I be quick to repent when I fail, stay pliable in Your hands and be merely the best vessel and perfect pinch of seasoning so that Your perfect will and purpose can be achieved in and through me. I pray this all in Jesus’ name. Make it so.