Thursday, April 23, 2009
Completely Miserable
I have been reading the OT lately, specifically 1 Samuel. There are so many great stories in this book. There are some even better applications for our lives, and implications of who God is and how he works. As Samuel is getting older, he appoints his sons to judge Israel. They are no good, and the rest of the nation begins crying out for a King, because they do not believe God to be good enough. Here is the good part. Samuel tells God what is going on and God says, "listen to them". Shocking! Furthermore, God knows this new king will make all of Israel completely miserable, and tells Samuel to make that very clear. Of course, Israel falls again. I think this story gives us a little insight into how God thinks. It shows, that even if entire nation wants one thing, it might not always be the best. It shows that God, in his infinite wisdom, might just give you what you selfishly want, knowing that you are going to be completely miserable. What's worse about this scenario, is God might actually tell you that you are going to completely miserable. Just like Israel, we will learn a valuable lesson. And just like Israel, we might be completely miserable, but we are still, and will always be God's chosen people.
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I'd like to go off on a bit of a tangent that this reminded me of....
ReplyDeleteI think it's important for Christians to constantly be defining and clarifying who "we" are. I know for me, if I were to read "Just like Israel, we will learn a valuable lesson," a few years ago, I would have read "we" as "we AMERICAN christians." It's so common these days for people to confuse the Kingdom of God with The United States of America. It's especially difficult for Christians who believe America is a "Christian" nation (if the sermon on the mount is any measure at all for what a Christian is, I think a Christian nation has a long ways to go). My hope is that the global church, will not be defined and define "our" enemies the same way our nation(s) defines its enemies. I recall Jesus upsetting the status quo by hanging out with and making heroes of Samaritans(people who had the wrong beliefs by the way Jn 4:22). If he were telling the parable of the good Samaritan today I believe he would have used "fundamentalist muslim" instead. Any time we let political leaders tell us who our enemies are, we are in big trouble. As Derek Webb sings, "You can not choose your friends, but you choose your enemies." Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Why do we seem to have such an easy time pointing out who our enemies are? Why does the Kingdom of God so often get co-opted by the kingdom of America? I would say because we don't know who "we" are anymore.
This is scary. What if i've already insisted on and gotten my own personal "King Saul" without realizing it? God, help me.
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