We interrupt your regular programming...

Yes, I am definitely behind.  And with good reason.  Friday, April 8th, my son was born!  We were in the hospital two days, and though we've been home a few days, we are still playing catch-up/adjusting/trying to make it through the sleep-deprivation haze that comes with those first few weeks postpartum.  We're both doing well, Big Sister is trying to adjust, and Daddy is an amazing, amazing man.  I am hoping to get caught up not only on the reading and the blog, but it may take a little bit of time.  I hope to be back on track, though, by Easter.  We shall see!  We're still trying to find "the new normal!"

Judges 10:1-11:40

I did get my reading done today.  I'm not actually going to write a full post, as there are things going on here at home that make it difficult to concentrate, except to say: this is my favorite story to tell high school students why the Bible is not boring.  Why?  Well, let's admit it, we all have a fascination for gruesome stories.  And this story is certainly not boring.

Tomorrow's Reading:  Judges 12:1-13:25

Judges 9:1-57

What a depressing story!  This is one that I don't remember having read before, though I've read through Judges more than once.  Apparently, Abimelech felt that his father had made a mistake when he told the Israelites not only would he not be king, but neither would his sons.  You see here, Abimelech takes matters into his own hands, convincing the people of Shechem to take him as their king.  There is more than one sin in his actions: first, the Lord God only was to be King over Israel, and Abimelech sought to usurp that role.  Secondly, he slew his brothers, seventy of them, on one stone; this means that he likely had them rounded up and executed, rather than taking them in battle.  Reading Be Available by Warren Wiersbe on this chapter, I see that Wiersbe points out that embedded in Abimelech's actions were other sins: ambition and greed, idolatry, dishonesty.  Clearly, his actions were abhorrent, and he certainly did not have the Shechemites best interests at heart, but his own. 

Many thoughts swirl in my head as I think about this passage, but mostly I think of Gideon's relationship with Abimelech.  Abimelech was the son of Gideon's slave woman.  Is it possible that he never really cared for or nurtured the young man?  Was Abimelech the product of Gideon's life after the snare of the ephod?  Did Gideon never teach his son(s) about the Lord, or about what it meant to follow the Lord?  Or did Abimelech simply rebel and refuse to submit to God?  It is clear from generation to generation in the Book of Judges that the previous generation, the parents and grandparents, failed to teach those in their care to love the Lord with all their heart, mind, and soul.  They had neglected the admonishments of Deuteronomy 6.  Was Gideon and Abimelech another example, one with tragic and dire results?

I look at my own daughter, and think of my son about to be born, and their futures and their relationships to the Lord weigh heavily on me.  What can I do to teach them not just Sunday School stories and knowledge but to love God, to cherish Him, to seek Him first above all things?  I feel the charge to make sure my children know Him and love Him and desire to follow Him.  I pray every day that He will call them to Him and that they will truly be His disciples.  It is stories like Abimelech's that give me a sense of urgency.  It is stories like these in Judges where you see the children forsaking the Lord that makes me cry out to Him that my children never will.  I want to know that they will be safe in His arms.  I want to know that I will see their beautiful faces in Heaven with my Savior.

Please, Lord, grant me, I pray, my children's salvation!  May they love You and honor You and cherish You above all things!  May they grow to be good disciples, better than their mother, and to be a testimony before others in their lives.  Take them by the hand and lead them into Your promised land.  Amen.

Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 10:1-11:40

Judges 8:22-35

What a sad ending to that story!  After the mighty things Gideon did because the Lord enabled him to, because the Lord made it possible for him to, because the LORD went before him and tied up all the details for him, Gideon went and did a fool thing!  He was right to refuse to be king, and he was right to say that it should be the Lord who ruled over Israel.  But then he made a gold ephod which became a snare not only to himself and his family, but others in Israel.  When he should have been leading the people in faithfulness to God, instead he drew them away from the Lord.  Obviously, you cannot rest on the laurels of one spiritual triumph.  You've heard the adage that if you're not growing and moving forward, you're actually backsliding?  This seems true here of Gideon.  Rather than continuing and pursuing faithfulness to the Lord, he camped on the fact that the Lord had used him greatly at one point, and instead begins to worship the spoils that he had gained.  It is a good warning to us: if we cannot see spiritual growth in our own lives recently, we may need evaluate where our walk is going.  There was a sign once on the wall across from the elevator doors in my dormitory at the Bible college I attended; it said: If you no longer feel close to God, it was not God who moved.  Something like that.  I can gaurantee that's true.

Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 9:1-57

Judges 7:1-8:21

Confession: Tonight, I just wanted to get the reading done.  I had difficulty paying attention and really just wanted to "check this off my list".  Which is sad, really, when you consider what we're reading: the story of Gideon overcoming the Midianites.  Of course, the story is more complicated than the Sunday School version with just 300 men, some torches, and clay jars.  It was the Ephraimites that played an important role in chasing down the fleeing enemy, as well as the fact that two cities in Gad refused Gideon succor, basically siding with Midian for the sake of the own lives.  Epic fail, there.

Here is an account where you clearly see the Lord orchestrating Israel's success: only 300 men go with Gideon to battle.  They strike the jars, light their torches, give a cry, and the Midianites go into madness, turning on one another.  And the dream one of them shared with their fellow and his comrade identified Gideon himself as their conqueror on hearing the dream, something the Lord had predicted to Gideon!  It's amazing.  They, in that night, defeated more than 120,000 men so that when they faced the kings of Midian, they had only 15,000 men at their side.  Gideon only started out with around 32,000 before the Lord whittled it down to 300!  This is an account that truly affirms, "If God is for us, then who can stand against us?" 

The Bible promises us that we can do all things through Christ who is our strength.  If we have that promise, then isn't possible that we could accomplish great things through Christ, also?  Gideon wasn't a mighty hero to begin with: this is the same man who hid in the winepress and claimed to be the least of his family, who put out the fleece two separate times.  We don't have to be great and mighty to start out with: we need only allow God to do His work.  It intimidates me, just a little bit, to think what could or might happen if I let go and let God do His thing.  What am I missing out on because of fear?

Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 8:22-35

Judges 6:1-40

Gideon.  This is a guy that I unfortunately understand.  Fear is a big thing with me.  Here is Gideon, the least of his clan, which was the least of his tribe.  He is beating wheat in a wine press to hide it from the Midianites when the Lord approaches him.  Though he is having a conversation when the angel of the Lord, possibly the LORD Himself, (as it says that the Lord turned to him to say), he doubts his calling to be the one to lead Israel out of its oppression.  He was given a sign, fire leaping from a rock to consume his offering, and still he doubted.  He could only destroy the altar to Baal by night, for he feared his own family.  And after he destroyed the altar and escaped retribution from the Baal worshippers, he still went before the Lord to ask a sign, twice, that he should go up against the Midianites.

I feel this guy's pain.  There are times when I think I may feel the Lord calling, or there may be something I think I am supposed to do, and I dither.  Am I right?  Do I understand the Lord right?  How do I know if I should really speak here and now?  How do I really know that I'm supposed to do this or that thing?  I always feel so unsure.  I've never been given the opportunity to set out a fleece, let alone twice.  I cannot say I always feel confident that I am really hearing the Holy Spirit or that I have discerned what He is saying correctly.  But one thing I am learning: it is by prayer and by seeking the Lord out on a consistent basis that I will learn to understand and recognize the Spirit's voice better.  Just as the more you speak you a person, the more readily you recognize their voice when they call, the more I listen and seek the Lord, the better I would be able to hear Him when He speaks to me.

Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 7:1-8:21

Judges 5:1-31

Do you ever wonder how spontaneous the songs of praise in the Bible are?  Did Barak and Deborah really have the ability to just break out into chorus at a moment's notice?  Some people do have that ability.  And perhaps, led by the Holy Spirit, it's even easier to do.  It's not something that lies within my talents and abilities.  I could not have composed such a beautiful hymn of worship to the Lord without the Spirit's help.  Which is why I wonder if perhaps they actually took a few days to compose it, or perhaps there were writers around to help them out... Or a myriad of possibilities.  But I recognize that it might have totally been the Holy Spirit guiding their worship.  How cool would that be?  To be so overwhelmed and excited by what the Lord is doing and to be caught up in the Spirit so that you have just the right words to say to express your gratitude and praise to God.  That's pretty cool.

Next Reading: Judges 6:1-40

Judges 3:12-4:24

The stories of Judges.  They fascinate me.

Take Ehud, for example.  How gruesome!  Fat Eglon sits on his throne and Ehud, being left-handed, is able to sneak a sword in to kill him.  It is my understanding that they only checked the left side for swords, where a right-handed person would carry theirs.  Let's face it: most of the world is right-handed.  Ehud plunges his sword into the king's belly, his fat encloses over it, and Ehud escapes while Eglon's servants think he's in the bathroom.  Wait, what??  This is in the Bible?  Yes, yes, it is.  From there, Ehud musters the people of Israel and they defeat their oppressors, the Moabites.  Notice that Ehud gives all credit to God, that the Lord has place the Moabites into their hands.  Not Ehud.  Not the absence of King Eglon, though, obviously, his notable death would have an impact on the battle.  The Lord sent Ehud, and Ehud knew it.

Then there is Deborah, the only female judge recorded in the Bible.  She was a prophetess and an arbitrator among the people.  Her courage and faith in the Lord spurred Barak to the battle field when his own courage couldn't.  And because of his lack of faith, a woman actually took credit for the victory.  She lulled Sisera with milk and a false sense of security, then she drove a tent peg through his head.  Barak subdued the army of the Canaanites and they defeated the King Jabin, who was their oppressor at this time.  But through all this, you see the Lord's hand at work.  Deborah prophesied the the Lord's command to move against Sisera and Jabin, as well she noted that the Lord would give the victory to Jael, though many may have suspected that it would be Deborah who would gain the credit (and to this day, many still do; she is far more famous that Jael).  But the real credit belongs to the Lord, who set things in motion through Deborah, and it was the Lord who went before Barak and gave the enemy into the Israelite's hands.

As fascinating as these stories are, as gruesome their details (like a good ghost story around the campfire, yes?), this was real life for people.  A woman in Israel thousands of years ago stepped back bloody from a man she had just lulled to sleep.  A warrior deferred to a woman because he could not trust the Lord by himself.  A man, stepping out in faith, was resourceful enough to make a sword and take down the oppressing king to lead his people to victory.  All of these stories rode to success on the back of this truth: the Lord was for them, none could stand against them.  That is not to say that Israel was perfect; they certainly didn't remain so.  That is not to say that just because you step out in faith, God will approve your every action.  If it is not firmly grounded in His will, He may very well not approve of your action.  Still, it's amazing to see what happens when the Lord is working in tandem with those who follow Him.  What could He accomplish through me, if I were willing?

Tomorrow's Reading: Judges 5:1-31

Judges 1:1-36; Judges 2:1-3:11

So... something happened to these posts.  I'm not sure what.  They were supposed to have published, but they seemed to have either not appeared or have disappeared from the blog.  I don't know what happened.  I'm sure they're floating out there in the netherlands of the internet, somewhere...

Judges is one of those books I am fascinated with.  Like the bloody original versions of familiar fairy tales, you don't expect to see some of these things in the Bible.  As a piece of literature, Judges is an epic tale of the affects of sin and dissolution on a nation.  As Holy Scripture, it has something to tell us.

In those first chapters, the pattern of Judges is established, and it will be repeated over and over again throughout the book.  Because the Israelites did not obey God in driving out the idolatrous nations, He revoked His blessing from them that they would always be successful in battle.  This is very important, as it is key to the cycle.  When things are good, Israel begins to be unfaithful to God, chasing after the false gods of their neighbors.  Because of their sin, God allows oppressors to rise over Israel; if they'd had His blessing still, they would have been able to beat back these oppressors.  But in truth, they needed them: because of their misery and oppression, they turned back to God and cried out to Him.  He took pity on them sent them judges: mostly men, one woman, who stood for the Lord, drove away the oppressors, and led the people in worshiping the true God.  As long as the Judge was alive, the people were faithful.  But when the judge died, the people turned to sin and idolatry, until the Lord began to discipline them again through raiders and plunderers.  Notice, God used these pagan nations to bring His holy nation back to Him each time.  And it worked; for a time.

It seems as long as the Israelites had a strong leader, they would follow that strong leader.  We'll see that when they gain a king: the good kings lead the people toward God; the bad kings led them astray.  Perhaps this is why Samuel was such an amazing character in the Bible: though not king, he was High Priest and led the people towards faithfulness all his days.  But that is in the future from now.

Next Reading: 3:11-4:24