Friday Faithfuls Two: Ecclesiastes

 posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

 Ok, I know it's Saturday; better late than skipping the week, eh?  Yesterday straight up got away from me...

Or, you know, maybe I was subconsciously avoiding one of the gloomiest books in the whole Bible.  Written by Solomon in his later years, after he had tried to figure out What Life Is All About from a humanistic standpoint.

He failed.  He found everything...everything...to be a waste of time, with no real satisfaction.  Pleasure, wealth, influence, knowledge...all of it.

The verse that hit home this week is his conclusion.

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. -- Ecc. 12:13 -14.

Solomon kinda messed up on his 'fear God and keep his commandments' conclusion; he had pretty much abandoned the commandments of God in his search for satisfaction in life.  After starting off so well, with two personal visitations, he still did not seek his satisfaction in God but looked pretty much everywhere else...only to come back to it in his old age and realize that was where it would have been all along.

If we collectively took that lesson to heart there would be a lot less grief in the world...but it runs counter to everything the culture endorses. 

 

Friday Faithfuls Two: Proverbs

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Proverbs.  

How on EARTH does one select ONE Timely Verse from Proverbs, which is a collection of Timely Verses?

I know, I set myself this challenge so I shouldn't complain about it, lol.  

So... in my quick skim through Proverbs, I encountered several verses that I really  hadn't pondered before, and almost chose one of them...but in the end, I decided to go a foundational bit...

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.  -- Prov. 3: 5-6, NIV 84

This was the theme scripture for the high school girls class I taught back in the day, so it's pretty ingrained.  But it is SO counter-intuitive.

We want to figure things out.  We want to know the 'why' for everything.

But knowing the 'why' makes life a question of reason, not faith.  And there are some 'whys' that are absolutely beyond our comprehension.

God says...trust him, even if we can't imagine a legitimate 'why'.  Even if we don't see 'how'.  Even if it doesn't make sense.

Because he sees EVERYTHING.  From the beginning to the end.  He knows stuff we don't know...can't know.  Even if he told us, we wouldn't get it.

When the one who Knows Stuff says 'Trust me', it actually DOES make sense to acknowledge that I *don't*  Know Stuff and trust him.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Psalms

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Wow, I thought, Psalms this week.  How am I going to decide on a verse from Psalms?

I opened my NIV 84 to the first Psalm and literally got hit between the eyes.

Maybe it's because I'm still pondering immersion, but the very first few verses challenged me enough that I stopped there.

Pondered it all day and really, I think it's what I need to talk about.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law meditates day and night.

-- Ps. 1: 1-2

Talk about immersion.  

Meditate on God's law day and night.

Pay attention to your companions and don't let them pull you off into  ...unwise...positions. 

Delight in God's law.

DELIGHT.

Wow.

Most people don't think 'delight' when they think about Bible study. It's generally a mix of obligation, drudgery and guilt, if we're honest.

But the one who delights in God's word is blessed.  Because, honestly, if one's delight is in God's law, one's closest companions are not likely to be folks who are wicked, unrepentant or scornful (that's the  King James for 'mocker').

I think that's the likely anchor for immersion in the true kingdom...delighting in and constantly pondering God's word.

It's where immersion starts.

Thoughts on ....Immersion...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

And I ain't talkin' about baptism...

Last week was a Big Family Vacation, and we spent it at a 50th anniversary celebration...

All the parks, Cirque du Soleil, fireworks shows, prix-fixe dining, and an average of  21,873 steps per day.

It was first mentioned back on Thanksgiving 2020, sitting socially distanced around the front porch, with the two-week old  grandson. 'What about Disney in 2022?' someone asked, and from that moment the planning was afoot.

We thought then that we'd be through the Covid threat, surely.  Then about eight weeks before we were gonna leave...omicron loomed.  The girlfriends both caught it...one works in food service, the other in a day care.  One didn't test negative until the day we left; it was that close. The rest of us got our boosters, did our best to avoid gatherings and wore face masks when we had to be out. Did that help?  Who knows.

I am going to confess I was really conflicted about the whole thing.  I hated that we were deliberately cutting back...doing the church at home thing...just so we could be healthy for a trip to see the mouse.  It seemed kinda frivolous, like we weren't focusing on what is truly important.

But just before we left, with all this ambivalence swirling around in my head, I felt like I heard 'Stop downplaying this.  It's not about a fun trip...there are connections to be made.'

So...what connections might have been made kind of remain to be seen, but it did change my perception of the trip a bit.

We got home Sunday evening and I hit work full on yesterday...swamped with vacation recovery, I didn't even get to eat lunch. But I think I'm pretty much caught back up to where I was when we left...and I have been thinking about the trip.

And, you know, the word that keeps coming up over and over is 'immersion'.  Because if you head to the home of the mouse and stay in one of his guest rooms and ride the buses to the parks it is a very immersive experience.

And it is somewhat seductive.  Oh, not in a sordid sort of way...in a cheery, family-friendly, welcome friends to the happiest place on earth sort of way. Which is even more of a temptation for folks who would never stumble into something clearly sinister.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that the mouse and his domain is sinister or evil or even wrong.  I'm just saying it's...seductive.  It kinda needs some resolve to resist the siren song that seems to make it a good idea to make life about either going to visit the mouse or counting the days until the next visit.

Because it is immersive.  It can dull the pain of real life, for a price.  It's a whole 'nuther world that welcomes all travelers with open arms...so long as they abide by the rules, lol. 

And I am contrasting that with my every day life; how immersed am I in the true Kingdom?  And what would my life look like if I were to get out of just busy and get into that pursuit?

I do know this...the folks who truly make a difference in THE kingdom are the ones who are immersed.

Food for thought.  And a personal challenge.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Job

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Job is a difficult book to quote.  Oh, there are LOTS of good little nuggets in there...but I find myself having the same problem looking for a quote from Job that I have responding to some things on social media.  On the surface, the thought is quite good...but if it is shared from a perspective that I can't endorse, would agreeing with the thought be the same as agreeing with the perspective?

Job is upset that God seems to be punishing him for something without telling him his error and protests, declaring his innocence; he is angry with his friends for their response.  Even the good quotes from Job's arguments seem skewed if your realize he is speaking from a position of self-justification.

Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar all maintain that Job is guilty of some secret sin that he won't confess; Eliphaz makes some particularly harsh accusations in chapter 22....I can't believe that he is actually listing things he knows that Job did, since God had already declared Job to be righteous.  He's either going on assumption or he misinterpreted some things in the past.  But they all maintain that a righteous person will NOT suffer, so therefore Job's suffering indicates that he is not as righteous as he proclaims he is.  So even the good quotes from these guys take on different meanings if you realize they are coming from a position of judgment.

Elihu, the youngest of the lot, maintains that God is supreme.  In fact, when I did this little tour ten years ago, my selection from Job was a quote from Elihu.  Now, I find myself gravitating towards Elihu's speech again...because I don't have to question the underlying intentions.

I thought I had settled on something, then I tripped over a different thought that I hadn't noticed before in Elihu's discourse...

"Beware of turning to evil, which you seem to prefer to affliction." -- Job 36:21, NIV 84

He is answering Job's lament that being righteous didn't seem to do him any good in the long run and he might has well  have done the things Eliphaz and the others were accusing him of doing since he was suffering anyway.

Of course, Job had no idea that he wasn't being punished at all, but that all the loss he experienced happened so he could be an example to someone he didn't even know was watching him.

But Elihu's warning is a good one.  The affliction of our age may not be the losses Job sustained, but it certainly could be the misunderstanding Job experienced.  Living life from a biblical worldview is most definitely misunderstood and judged in our current society.  But abandoning that foundation in order to avoid the condemnation and misunderstanding of others is not a viable option. 

Friday Faithfuls Two: Esther

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

"Go, gather all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.  I and my maids will fast as you do.  When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law.  And if I perish, I perish."   -- Est. 4:16

That is a quality decision.

In the face of a life and death situation, Esther made a life and death decision...she would do the illegal thing and go before the king without an invitation.

No food and no drink (not even water?) for three days is an extreme fast. It is a stop-everything-and-pray-around-the-clock event. 

When you are desperate, desperate measures are called for.

So the Jews of Susa and Esther and all her serving girls stopped everything and prayed for three days, all agreeing on one thing...that the king would give her favor and stop the coming slaughter of all the Jews throughout the territory of the Medes and the Persians, which would have pretty much annihilated the entire Jewish race.

There have been a couple of times in my life I have been on a 'desperation fast'...but nothing at that level.  More of a 'we have to do the right thing' so we pray for wisdom and discernment...but the life of the nation depended on God moving on their behalf.

And we think our times are stressful.  We are not to that place yet.

But I would hope and pray that we would know how to pray and hope in a desperate situation.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Nehemiah

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Oh, Nehemiah.  A man of rigid integrity and high temper.  But he led the people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in an astonishing 52 days...and about half of that was with half the people working and half guarding them, and the ones who were working went about with their weapons in their hands, because the enemies of God's people had threatened to attack them to prevent them from completing the work.  So they were pretty severely handicapped and they STILL rebuilt the wall in 52 days.

It's an amazing story, but there's more than wall building in the face of opposition in the book of Nehemiah.  There's also the record of the Jews who had returned falling into the old practices of their forefathers...intermarrying with the pagan people around them, which was the first step down the slippery slope to pagan worship. Nehemiah had a pretty confrontational response to that... Plus, the people were oppressing their fellow Jews...loaning them money at interest so that the poorer people were forced to sell their children into slavery to cover the debts.

They were more concerned with their welfare than they were with the well being of their fellow countrymen...who were, after all, distant cousins...and Nehemiah was Not Pleased.

He called the moneylenders in to a big meeting and pretty much tore them up, concluding with 

So I continued, "What you are doing is not right.  Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?"   -- Neh. 5:9

What they were doing was giving fuel to their unbelieving neighbors to judge them as unrighteous.  No different than any other money grubbing group.  It was bringing a reproach to all of God's people.

Even today, this holds true.  When a handful of folks who proclaim themselves Christians behave in a way that is self-centered, it brings reproach on all of God's people.  It's one of the enemy's favorite strategies to get folks to ignore the message of Jesus...holding up for examination the behavior of people who are not Christ-like. It's interesting...today, Nehemiah would probably be ridden out of office in disgrace for the rather violent way he went about enforcing the instructions in the Law, but at that time his actions actually caused the people to stop and consider what they were doing and repent.

And it is worth noting that the Jews did NOT fall back into the pagan practices of their neighbors from that point on...Nehemiah nipped that in the bud and it never again became an issue.

But here's the question it raises now...am I doing something out of selfish personal interest that is bringing reproach on all the people of God?  

That calls for repentance...which means to stop, turn around, and go the other way.

Stop.

Go the other way.

The money lenders of Nehemiah's day stopped charging interest on loans and they paid back the interest they had collected from their countrymen.  That's what I'm talking about.