Category: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: Judges 6:22-23

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“Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord.  And Gideon said, ‘Alas, O Lord God!  For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.’  But the Lord said to him, ‘Peace be to you.  Do not fear; you shall not die.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been so upset about something that you were missing the world right in front of your face?  Most of us have at some point.  Life doesn’t go our way and we let it put us in a place where we can’t get past what went wrong.  All of our attention gets sucked into the frustration and things that most people would say are obvious don’t even register on our radar. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: John 10:41

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“And many came to him.  And they said, ‘John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you want to be great?  Most of us yearn for that.  I heard about another pastor a few weeks ago who does a blog too.  He has 200,000 followers.  My carnal first thought was, “I want 250,000.”  That’s inside of all of us.  We want greatness.  We want to be not just recognized, but recognized more than everybody else for what we have done.  Our culture encourages this too.  Our heroes are not great statesmen and scientists and public servants anymore.  Our heroes are sports stars and movie stars and social media stars.  It’s a great rat race whose catch is that there isn’t any cheese waiting at the end of the path. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 30:18

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“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The people of Israel were in a pretty hard spot.  They had turned on the Lord.  In fact, they had been turned away from the Lord for a long time.  They had been turned away from the Lord for a long time and it was beginning to show.  Their world was teetering on the edge.  Some of them had started to realize just how dire their situation really was.  They could read the international tea leaves.  They saw the Assyrian army moving steadily in their direction, gobbling up nations in their path and spitting out nothing but ruin and destruction.  But, instead of heeding Isaiah’s call to return to the Lord for their hope and salvation, they were running everywhere but to Him. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Kings 17:7

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“And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you remember this story?  Kings and Chronicles tend for me to be four books with lots of exciting stories to read, but not very much that sticks.  First Kings gets started with the transition of power from David to Solomon and all the court intrigue that surrounded that.  Then we get to the almost tabernacle-like detail of the building of the Temple and Solomon’s exceedingly long prayer of dedication.  Then his son, Rehoboam, blows it and sparks a civil war that leaves the nation permanently divided.  After that, it’s pretty much a list of various kings and how they blew it and the names, faces, and events all run together.  Second Kings is even muddier. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Deuteronomy 20:1

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“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Reading verses like this in books like this is tough when it comes to the Scriptures.  Moses is about two-thirds of the way through his farewell speech to the people of Israel here.  And he’s talking about a hypothetical future situation and what the people should do if they are to face something like this.  The challenge is this: What on earth are we supposed to do with something like this?

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