Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Luke 1:7

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“But they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years.”  (CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

The story of Jesus as Luke tells it, who carefully investigated the whole thing in order to write an accurate and orderly account (verse 3), doesn’t begin in a place of great joy or excitement. It begins in a place of disappointment and quiet desperation that had lasted for decades. Not quite what you would expect from the story of God’s arrival into the world. 

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Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 22:36

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“You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your gentleness made me great.” (ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

Sometimes when you’re reading through the Scriptures a particular verse catches your eye. Have you had that happen to you before? The reasons it does are manifold, but one of them is that it says something in a way you weren’t expecting. That’s what happened to me with this verse. 

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Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 24:1

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“The Lord’s anger burned against Israel again, and he stirred up David against them to say: ‘Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is a really uncomfortable chapter. It raises a couple of really hard questions. I’ll treat them as they come starting with this one: Why would the Lord cause David to do something for which He then punished him? How is that just or fair or right or good or whatever other adjective you want to throw in there? 

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Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 22:25

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“And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.”  (ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

What David says right here reflects a pre-Jesus understanding of how God operates toward us that is rooted in the Mosaic Covenant. Under that system, if someone kept the Law or at least had offered the proper sacrifices, they could consider themselves clean before God. And God allowed this to be the case even though they weren’t totally right. Their sins had been covered, but they weren’t forgiven. Once Jesus came, He revealed David’s thinking to be right, but his confidence to be very much wrong. 

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Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 20:2

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“So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem.”  (ESV – Read the chapter) 

Unresolved issues become the fuel for future conflicts. There’s an old adage about conflict resolution that heralds time as a kind of universal problem-solver. Far from being true, though, this idea is nothing more than a dangerous fantasy. When we face a conflict or even a tension in a relationship, if things are not brought to a resolution, we should not consider the matter resolved. Time is no healer of wounds. Conflicts which are not resolved, but rather are simply left alone do not solve themselves. They become festering pools of bitterness that eventually threaten to poison everything around them and become the lens through which we view everything else in our lives. 

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