“And the king said, ‘And where is your master’s son?’ Ziba said to the king, ‘Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, “Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father.”’” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Mephibosheth was delusional. It perhaps wasn’t obvious to anyone who saw him or interacted with him on a daily basis, but there was a delusion in his heart all the same. As long as it stayed there things were pretty good for him, but now that it had shown itself, the walls of reality were going to come crashing in on him. Hard.
In part five of our series, Pursue: Chasing God in a Godless World, we pause to remember. Along the way of our journeys after Jesus, problems and challenges are going to arise. When these do, if we’re not careful, we can get so focused on dealing with them that we forget about the God who’s been helping us all along. Keep reading to see what impact this can have and how we can avoid it.
Avoid Spiritual Amnesia
When was the last time you forgot something? (And if you can’t remember, now counts.) Forgetting things is frustrating. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how some things stick, but others don’t. Usually, it too often seems like the inane, unimportant things stick, while the important ones don’t. That’s infuriating, isn’t it? It’s infuriating for us, sure, but it’s infuriating for the people around us who were perhaps counting on us remembering them. Guys—confession time—we do that more often than our wives do, don’t we? I know I need to work on that all the time and I’ll bet some of you do too.
“Then the king instructed Zadok, ‘Return the ark of God to the city. If I find favor with the Lord, he will bring me back and allow me to see both it and its dwelling place. However, if he should say, “I do not delight in you,” then here I am — he can do with me whatever pleases him.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever tried to squeeze a goldfish? Or how about a wet bar of soap? Or it could be just about anything else small and slippery. It’s not an easy thing to do. The tighter you get, the more likely the thing is to slip out of your hand. There are things and positions in our lives that are like this too. The tighter we try and hold on to them, the more likely they are to slip away from us. Read the rest…
“And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, ‘How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!’ And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord —and I will make merry before the Lord.’” (ESV – Read the chapter)
The Scriptures don’t give us a truly inside look at very many of the lives of the various characters who appear in it. We get even fewer inside looks into the marriages it presents. What we see here is a rare thing in the Scriptures. The tension between David and Michal here is thick. Emotions are running high. They both thought they were right and were upset at the other. If you’ve been married longer than, say, a week, this is no doubt a situation you have experienced in kind if not in detail. What should we make of it? Read the rest…
“When King David heard about all these things, he was furious.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
We live in a rage culture today, don’t we? With the echo chamber effect created by social media, the smallest offense can get all whipped up into a senseless frenzy. Politicians seem to campaign with the intent of getting their supporters angry. After all, if they’re angry, they’re more likely to be motivated to go out and do something about their anger like vote. But here’s a question that we don’t seem to stop and think about nearly as often as we probably should: Is all this anger actually solving any problems? Read the rest…
