Hodgepoging Today for Fun

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I was looking over the blog posts for the last however many weeks and, y'all, it's been AWFULLY serious over here.  Time to throw in something lighthearted.  And it just so happens to be HodgePodge Wednesday, so, without even looking at the questions, I'm dropping them in.  We'll see how it works out, lol.

If you're interested in reading other folks' answers, or you'd like to play along on your own blog, just click the link to Joyce's page...

1. It's Mickey Mouse's birthday (November 18)...happy birthday Mickey! He reads here, right? Have you ever been to Disney, any of the parks at all? Are you a Disney superfan or something less than that? They're open right now so tell us, would you go if you had the time/money/a free trip?

Well, Happy Birthday to Mickey Mouse!  I've been to visit him three times in my life; once to Disneyland in October of  1979, pre-engagement, on a trip to visit then-boyfriend now-hubby. I was enchanted...one minute you're in Anaheim and then you walk through the gates and you're transported to elsewhere.  It really did seem magical...back in 1979.  Not sure it's still like that now. No pics, but somewhere I have some Minnie ears with my name embroidered on them.  The next time was March 1982; My Sweet Babboo and I drove down to central Florida to visit my grandmother.  Of course, we did a day trip to The Magic Kingdom, which was the only park open at that time (Epcot opened a few months later).  WDW was celebrating its 10th anniversary; we had a thunderstorm dump on us literally moments after walking through the gate and the temperature plummeted.  But we bought sweatshirts in a gift shop and carried on.  We even ate at King Stefan's Banquet hall...made reservations when we walked through the castle that morning. Can't do that now, lol.  It was one of the best meals I've ever had. Then last year...we spent a week with our kids doing all the parks.  Lemme just say...it's changed a LOT.  If I could go back...I'd spend a day at Hollywood Studios.  Actually, I'd spend most of it at Galaxy's Edge; there's an 18 year old geek deep in a corner of me that was all gaga there.  I wouldn't say I am a superfan...but I do have a kid who's a Disney Travel Agent so there is a LOT of Disney in our lives, lol.  #thisistheway

2. Your favorite place to go when you want to be quiet as a church mouse? Would those who know you well describe you as more churchmouse or perhaps more like mighty mouse? 

 

My 'quiet as a churchmouse' time would be ideally spent with my Bible and journal...either at the table on my front porch or sitting at lunch time in the quiet sanctuary at church (I'm on the business office staff) with no one else around.  But life is not cooperating with me sitting either place right now so I've got to make do with other spots that just don't seem as exclusive.   And I'm probably a churchmouse...a clamourous church mouse, lol

3. The day before Mickey's birthday happens to be National Homemade Bread Day. Did/will you celebrate? Do you bake your own bread? Last time you had hot out-of-the-oven homemade bread? What's your favorite kind of bread? 

 

Ack!  I didn't have time to bake bread yesterday but I might've if I had known ...if I had yeast, which seems to be hard to find.  I have my grandmother's  recipe for 'Delicate Rolls', which I remember eating at every big family dinner growing up.  I don't quite have her knack, since I only make them once a year (turn 'em into crescent rolls wrapped around a mixture of butter, brown sugar and pecans and...a marshmallow; another one of her tricks) for New Year's Eve.  But I do love some just plain ol' homemade bread; the 'Rich Egg Bread' recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook is a good one.  But yeast is like toilet paper for some reason...very hard to find at times...

4. What's something you might say is 'the greatest thing since sliced bread'? 

Teabags, lol.  I have developed a taste for some artisinal tea but don't like the little bits that seep through a teaball.  You can get little filters and make it work, but I have a new appreciation for pre-bagged tea.  

5. Let's keep the gratitude theme we started last week rolling on through November. Share with us five little things you're grateful for today. Small blessings. One catch-they all must start with the letter T. Gotta keep us thinking, right? 

Time off; I had some use-or-lose vacation time that's giving me a nice break before Thanksgiving

Taste - there have been years (two in a row a while back) that I had a severe sinus infection at Thanksgiving and could not taste anything.  It was truly sad to cook the traditional dinner and not be able to taste any of it.  

Traditions -I am a sap for traditions.  Thanksgiving menu is the same every year; we decorate the house with old and loved ornaments and decor.  I don't do trendy trees.. ours are eclectic and mismatched and kitschy but I love setting them up for the memories they bring.

Tap water - especially hot tap water.  This is one thing that I continually give thanks for; so many folks in the world have to work for drinkable water and we just turn a knob.

Trees - so pretty this time of year.  I've taken lots of pics.  Here's one... love the contrast of the yellow against the blue sky.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I really don't know what Thanksgiving is going to look like this year; we have some many variables and Covid is encroaching on our plans.  But even if it is substantially different from our traditional holiday we still have much to be thankful for.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert -- Jeremiah: General Judgment

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I realized today that I actually missed a verse that I hadn't covered yet, so this post ...technically... should come before last week's.  Thank my scribbled up notes for that.

Both of the verses  we're looking at today use 'desert' as an adjective; a geographic description of a group of people, and there really isn't any particular significance attached to 'desert'; I'm going to look at the specific 'other nations' that are mentioned next week.  But, in the interest of being thorough....

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh -- Egypt, Judah, Edom , Ammon, Moab and all who live in the desert in distant places.  For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart." -- Jer. 9:25-26

I don't know anything about the practices of the Arabic nations mentioned here, or the tribes who lived in the desert, such as the Nabateans and the Idumeans,  but circumcision was, to the Jews, a sign of God's covenant with them.  This concept...circumcision of the heart...was repeated in Romans: "Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised....A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if is is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.  Such a man's praise is not from men, but God." (Rom. 4:25, 28-29)

Even in the Old Testament, the idea was established that the motive and intent of the heart mattered.   Taking the mark of the covenant of God in one's body was not terribly significant if one did not also apply one's heart to following God and the laws He gave.  A ritual, however costly, does not substitute for obedience and relationship. We can carry this further and apply it anyone who believes their participation in a ritual...whether it's baptism or sacrament or even walking down the aisle in a church service and repeating a prayer...is the thing that's going to make them righteous.  No, it is a heart thing.  The heart  needs to be circumcised...removed of excess flesh (IE, that inclination to regard, crave and indulge in what God has forbidden). It is with the heart that we believe and are saved (Rom 10:10).

So. I'm just going to leave that there and go on.

The next passage also mentions a multitude of nations and also includes Judah (I've actually mentioned this chapter briefly in an earlier post regarding taking biblical passages out of context). In Jer. 25:15, Jeremiah is instructed to take a 'cup of God's wrath'  around to a specific list of nations.  That list is in verses 18 - 26 and includes Jerusalem, all the towns of Judah, Egypt, Uz, the Philstines of Askhelon, Gaza, Ekron and Ashdod; Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, the kings of the coastlands, Deadan, Tima, Buz, all who are in distant places, 

all the kings of Arabia  and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the desert; (25:24)

Zimri, Elam and Medisa, all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other -- all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.  In short, EVERYONE ON THE PLANET.  "See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished?" (25:29)

If God does not hold his hand back from pouring judgement upon his own people, the rest of mankind surely will not escape.  We all  know the judgment that fell upon Israel and Judah for adopting the practices and gods of the pagan nations around them...this is a warning to anyone who wants to shake their heads at God's people.  What we have to understand...God's punishment to Israel was always to purify the nation, to ultimately bring them closer to him as his own. God's punishment to those who have abused his people...that's a different thing.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Jeremiah: Judgment against Judah

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, for those who are joining us lately....I'm doing a word study.  The word is 'desert', and we've been at it since August of last year.   Up to Jeremiah now, and this is post number...4...in which we're clustering the verses by topic as we go through.  Most of the verses containing the word 'desert' have to do with judgment, and today...we're looking at verses that have to do with judgment against the nation of Judah specifically.

In the first passage, you've got to back up several verses to see that the 'you' mentioned is the nation of Judah.... Jer. 13:19 states. 'The cities in the Negev will be shut up, and there will be no one to open them.  All Judah will be carried into exile, carried completely away.'  What follows is a more detailed discussion, but the bit we're specifically looking at today is down a bit further.

"I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind. This is your lot, the portion I have decreed for you, " declares the LORD,  "because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods."  -- Jer. 13:24-25

"For this is what the LORD says about the palace of the king of Judah:  "Though you are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebannon, I will surely make you like a desert, like towns not inhabited."  -- Jer 22:6

For context, Judah had been threatened by Babylon, but literally all the prophets of the day were declaring that God would deliver Judah and Jerusalem out of the hands of the Babylonians...as he had done so many times previously.  Only Jeremiah had a message of doom...this was not like the other times, this was not an external threat against the people of God.  This was judgment coming from God himself, because the people had left off doing what he had required of them.  Not that they weren't following the specifics of the law, they were keeping up the sacrifices...somewhat...and the holy days and such.  They were going through the outward motions of obedience.  But he required that they serve only him, and they had added worship of pagan gods to their rituals.  Ultimately, they even turned to these idols to try and protect them against the judgment God was sending, trying to placate as many gods as possible.  At that point, their faith had fallen from trust in God to mere superstitions actions, considering the God who had called them out of Egypt and made them a nation no more powerful than the other deities they were honoring. As for Jeremiah, rather than believe he was bringing them a message from God with an opportunity to repent...they accused him of treason, of working with the Babylonians to discourage them.   But Jeremiah never wavered in his message...although he did complain to God about having to deliver it. And don't be fooled; staying consistent with his message cost him.

A wind from the desert...hot, scorching, unrelenting.  And despite how he loved the nation, God was not going to hold back his hand from their punishment.  He had told them under Moses...if they left off following his commandments and followed other gods, disasters would come, with the final one being deportation from the land they had traveled 40 years and fought many battles to win. He had warned them in the beginning, continued to warned them through the years and now was making the final appeal through Jeremiah before their cities were unpeopled and the desert reclaimed them.

We think them foolish for not heeding the message, but do we not have prophets among us today, warning us of judgment?  And do we not shrug them off as crackpot religious freaks?  What if...the disasters of 2020 are not a crazy random string of events, but are actually warnings from God that we have left off from following him?  Sure, there are some crackpot religious-sounding freaks making a noise for their own promotion...but what if there are some truth tellers in the mix?  It would be a good strategy of the enemy to drown out the true voices with so many near-misses that no one heard the real message of warning and a call to repentance.  We are not so unlike the last days of Judah.  

And I'm not really referring to a society that has turned its collective back on God.  I'm talking about those that call themselves followers of God, who are listening to the unbelievers around them and claiming their objectives and adding their ideas of holiness to the worship of the one true God.  Mixing in the surrounding culture didn't work for the people of Jeremiah's day...and it won't work for God's people now.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Jeremiah: Judgment Against Specific People

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

This is kind of a weird category...but it is worth looking at as it covers religious leaders, government leaders, and the people who follow them.

Back to the beginning, we cruise along to the next verse mentioning 'desert' in Jeremiah that we haven't already talked about elsewhere...with context, and the actual verses mentioning desert in bold, as usual:

So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God.  But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke and torn the bonds.  Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them, a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great and their backslidings many.   -- Jer 5:5-6

This is what the LORD says, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will not see prosperity when it comes.  He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives." - Jer 17:5-6

Concerning the prophets:  My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble.  I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and his holy words.  The land is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land lies parched and the pastures in the desert are withered.  The prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly.  "Both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness, " declares the LORD.    - Jer. 23:9-11 

The leaders, who have rebelled against God's law; the people who follow them, trusting in the leaders to be their protection and guides; the prophet and priests who abuse their office, teaching what benefits themselves instead of the truth.  My friends, if this is not a description of current events I don't know what is.

Jeremiah was flat out accused of treason because he didn't fall in line with them. The people got so far away from what God had instructed that they could no longer tell when a real prophet was among them, giving them real instructions that would be for their own good.  And, to be honest, it wasn't one hundred percent the fault of the citizens of the land that they had gone so far into error because their government and their religious leaders were all corrupted.  They didn't have access to the scriptures as individuals; they could only go on what they were told.    If the leaders led them astray, they had very little chance to see their error.

But we have free access to the scriptures.  We have the Holy Spirit to guide us.  What's our excuse?

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Jeremiah: Judgment Falls on the Nation

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

As I said in the last post, Jeremiah's 'desert' verses deal primarily w/ judgment.  So, I kinda went through and divvied up the judgment verses according to the object of the judgement, if that makes sense.

The first group kinda falls under the category of 'the nation/people'...it's pretty vague, and it may overlap with other categories, but I didn't want to try to cover all of them in one post, so work with me here. ;-)

At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told, "A scorching wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward my people, but not to winnow or cleanse;  a wind too strong for that comes from me.  Now I pronounce my judgements against them."  Jer. 4: 11 - 12

I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its town lay in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.   - Jer 4:26

I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the desert pastures.  They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard.  The birds of the air have fled and the animals are gone.  - Jer 9:10

What man is wise enough to understand this?  Who has been instructed by the LORD and can explain it?  Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross? The LORD said, "It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law.  Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them."  - Jer 9:12-14

"It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares. Over all the barren heights in the desert destroyers will swarm, for the sword of the LORD will devour from one end of the land to the other; no one will be safe.  They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing.  So bear the shame of your harvest because of the LORD's fierce anger.   - Jer 12:11-13

Amazing.  I didn't pick those verses because they made a narrative; I picked verses that sort of applied to the land/ nation/ people and wrote them in order.

Go back and read them again.  There is a narrative there.

Judgement is proclaimed against the people.

Jeremiah laments the waste that has been laid to the land and asks for explanation.

God replies that it is because the people abandoned his law and began following the stubbornness of their own hearts and false gods; the withering drought that destroyed the harvest, the events that ruined the towns were all part of his devouring sword.  Not just nature responding to unknown conditions, not just turns in history, but events and conditions actually brought about by the judgment of God.

'Desert' is judgment against the collective group of people who rejected God's laws.  Desolation, if you will.

Would such a narrative fly today?  Or do today's high-minded thinkers see such passages in the Bible and say, "Oh, look, how cute...the primitive people are ascribing these events to a deity.  How quaint." 

If God isn't God and the Bible isn't anything remarkable, sure.  But...if God is God, and the Bible is His word, then primitive ol' Jeremiah wasn't just being an ignoramus.  He actually heard the words of God, the judgments and their reasons.  If there is a correlation between various disasters and a moral decline/ rejection of God's law, then maybe we should consider that as a cause for destruction and desolation we see around us?

Just sayin'.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Jeremiah: Defilement

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi     

I counted 22 verses containing the word 'desert' in the book of Jeremiah...and almost ALL of them are pronouncements of judgment against nations.  Mostly against Judah/Israel, with a smattering of pronouncements against Babylon and one or two against other nations.

So...be prepared for some heavy weather comin'.

But the first verse in Jeremiah that mentions desert is 2:2...

"Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:  'I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them,' " declares the LORD.  -- Jer. 2: 2 - 3

What was.  The way things used to be.  The rest of chapter 2 describes what has happened since that time; the falling away.

What is.

"How can you say, 'I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals'?  See how you behaved in the valley; consider what you have done.  You are a swift she-camel running here and there, a wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving -- in her heat who can restrain her?  Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves; at mating time they will find her."   - Jer. 2:23-24

"You of this generation, consider the word of the LORD:  'Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness?  Why do my people say, 'We are free to roam; we will come to you no more'? " - Jer 2:31

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again?  Would not the land be completely defiled?  But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers -- would you now return to me?" declares the LORD.  "Look up to the barren heights and see.  Is there any place where you have not been ravished?  By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert.  You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness."  - Jer. 3:1 - 2

It is kinda...creepy...that the rebellion of Israel is described in sexual terms. A she-donkey in heat... a prostitute looking for business.  And it is also interesting that such rebellion is described as defiling the very land on which the nation exists..

Jeremiah's reaction is to want to run away, get away, be done with them

Oh, that I had in the desert a lodging place for travelers, so that I might leave my people and go away from them; for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people. - Jer. 9:2 

If you read through the first few chapters of Jeremiah, there's  a lot more detail given in all the verses that DON'T mention the desert.  But...how interesting is it that the verses that mention the desert kind of provide a synopsis of the situation?  Israel once followed God and were protected by Him; they deserted him and went after what satisfied their appetites, defiling even the land and filling God's prophet with grief and abhorrence.

Consequences will follow.

And that'll preach today, y'all.  That'll preach today. And the people today would listen about as well as the people of Jeremiah's day listened to him.

Will we face the same sort of consequences? 

The one thing that doesn't turn up in the verses about 'desert' is the call to repentance; the people were implored to return to God and repent and prevent the judgement. But they would not, and the judgment came.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Isaiah:Restoration

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The last group of  'Desert' verses in Isaiah is also the largest...six verses/passages that encourage the people that, even though there is exile, restoration is coming.

The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted;  citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks, till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest.  Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.  My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.  -- Is. 32: 14 - 18

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.  Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.  The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution  he will come to save you."  Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Then will the lame leap like a deer; and the mute tongue shout for joy.  Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.   Is. 35:1 - 6

"The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst.  But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.  I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.  I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.  I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.  I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it."  -- Is. 41:17 - 20

Let the desert and its towns raise their voices;let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice.  Let the people of Sela sing for joy; let them shout from the mountaintops.  Let them give glory to the LORD and proclaim his praise in the islands.  The LORD will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. -- Is. 42:11 - 13

"See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.  The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland,  to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."  -  Is. 43: 18 - 21

This is what the LORD says: "In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inherintances, to say to the captives, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'  They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.  They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them.  He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water."  -- Is. 49:8 - 10

Oh, there is so much more about restoration in those chapters that I really had a hard time limiting the selections to the context around the 'desert' verses.  You can go read them yourself, if you choose.  

And, of course, it's possible to assign these verses to different timelines...anything from the return of the captives from Babylon, to the coming of Messiah, to the return of the Jews and recreation of the nation after the diaspora to the final triumph of God over all evil. And they can also be applied to the literal desert or a spiritual desert. But the immediate audience was the Jews in exile in Babylon, so whatever other applications these verses have, that one is the first and foremost for them: God had not forgotten his people and he would bring them back.  Indeed, he was still with them even when they went through the judgment and the exile.  

It is no different now; his ultimate design is always restoration, and the ultimate destiny of the desert is to blossom into fertile green fruitfulness.