Friday, September 26, 2008

1 Kings

I haven't updated here recently, not because I haven't been reading and thinking, but with my work, I just haven't had time to post! I am very passionate about reading at least one chapter a day. I think it's good for me :)

In 1 Kings 1 there's an interesting comment on parenting. One of David's sons- Adonijah - starts to run amuck and in verse 6 there is this comment:
His father had never interfered with him by asking, "Why do you behave as you do?"
Our actions or inactions in parenting can have an affect on how the child is raised.

Extravagance can get God's attention. In 1 Kings 3:4 Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. Why would you offer so much? Solomon must have been really desperate to hear from God there. It was shortly after that that God asked him what he wanted and he asked for wisdom and God was pleased. I think that is one reason God hangs close to Rustle. We are really desperate people!

A number of chapters in 1 Kings are about the building of the temple. This sounds like a lot of work and dedication. There was so much that went into it. So much care. So much investment. And yet later Solomon goes adrift from the way of the Lord. Staying with the Lord is a continual thing that you have to do day by day. Just because you build a big temple for him one day, doesn't mean you are guaranteed to stay with Him the next day. (He will never leave you, but we can leave Him)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

2 Samuel 20=Crazy stuff!

Right, reading this chapter made me think- wow this is a crazy chapter!

3 When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them, but did not lie with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.


Ok, I'm guessing he did this because his son slept with them publicly. Maybe he didn't like them so much, so that's why he left them behind when he left the palace. You'd think if they were important to him, he's have brought them with him?
Why put them under guard? Why confine them? If he doesn't like them anymore, why not let them go? I mean it's nice he provided their material needs, but what kind of a life was it, to be confined for something you really had no control over?

Then David sends Amasa out to generate an army and gives him 3 days, because they want to go after a dude named Sheba. But he takes too long, so David tells Abishai to go out with an army. Then at some point Amasa catches up to the other army and Joab assassinates him. Apparently Joab festered some resentment at Amasa being put in charge in Chapter 17. When people who are on the same team treat each other like this, what does that say about the team? We are all so flawed.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

When things go wrong

David had a lot of good things in his life but he also had a lot of things go wrong. He spent time on the run from Saul and then later on the run from his own son Absalom. That's a lot of time on the run.
His first son with Bathsheba dies. While the son is sick and dying he fasted and wept, pleading for the life of his son. Hoping that "the Lord might be gracious to me and let the child live"(2 Samuel 12:22)
On the second time on the run, some guy (Shimei) comes out and curses David. Members of his party want to kill Shimei (that would silence him!) but David's attitude is that God told Shimei to curse him, so he needs to take it and "It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today" (2 Samuel 16:12)
So when bad things happen, he does not retaliate, just takes it on the chin and hopes that God will dole out the justice for him. Often we think we need to take justice into our own hands, but that was not David's attitude.

A gift that David receives while on the run the second time is that Ziba (a servant of Saul's grandson, who has seen David be good to the grandson) brings him a "string of donkeys saddled and loaded with 200 loaves of bread, 100 cakes of raisins, 100 cakes of figs and a skin of wine" (2 Samuel 16:1) This would have been a lot of time, effort and expense for Ziba. Are we willing to put time, effort and expense into people like he was?

The quote that I am pondering after this weeks' reading is from 2 Samuel 14:14:
14 Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.