The Places We Lived

I wanted to title this 'the end of an era', but I don't have a song titled that. Really, what prompted this is sitting in my next to last midnight showing of Harry potter. I've been reading/watching these since I was 11. So much has changed. But Harry has not.

It made me think of how Israel must have felt as they split. At the end of movie 5, hermione says to Harry and Ron "everything is going to be different now, isn't it?". How much more must israel have felt that ring true as they became a divided nation, conquered again and again?

Kids

Poor Eli. He was such a man of God and tried to instill that in his children, I would assume. Yet, his children were awful. 1 Samuel 2:12 says "Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord". God replaces these sons with Samuel as the heir to the religious throne, if you will. God tells Eli that his sons are not faithful and will not be the next in his line, but will instead be killed and God will raise up a replacement who is more suitable. Eli seems to simply accept this and move on. In fact, when his sons do die, he is more shocked and appalled by the loss of the ark than the loss of his family.
This made me think of how often parents are blamed for the actions of their children, even well into the adulthood of that child. I think that is a much more delicate balance there than can be determined by judgmental outsiders. Today I overheard a conversation about a man of power over young adult men (18+) who would refuse to meet the parents of men he didn't like. He made the assumption that because the child was ill mannered, the parents would be awful as well. How much of this mindset is actually based on a deep-set Freudian mindset we have without even realizing or acknowledging it?
God doesn't seem to do this very often thus far. We all know some of the proverbs that get quoted in support of this idea- "spare the rod, spoil the child", etc. But God does not seem to hold Eli responsible for his children's transgressions, just as Adam and Eve are not held responsible for the sins of their children. Sometimes parents get a bad rap for children that they loved and punished properly but who continued to act out and misbehave. This just seems like us judging situations we don't understand completely and misappropriating behavior onto an older generation.

Brick

This makes me laugh, so I'm sharing it here for Dr. Reid to discover and enjoy!
http://www.thebricktestament.com/index.html

Go here. Laugh. Enjoy.

For Good

1 Samuel 9 made me think of how sometimes God puts people in our lives that make small differences, yet it changes everything. In this chapter, Saul is out searching for his father's escaped donkeys with a servant boy. Saul get ready to return, unsuccessful, but the boy suggests they go speak to the town prophet and see if he can direct them to the animals. Nowhere in the text does it say that God has anything to do with the boy's suggestion, but tells us the facts of how the event occurred. It does tell us that God had spoken to Samuel about Saul's arrival and told him that Saul was to be the anointed king.
It made me wonder how many of the biggest events in our lives are caused by something so small as the servant boy's suggestion to speak to the seer. God can, and will, use anything and everything in our lives to work out His plans.

Samson

Last year, my church in England asked me to preach the Sunday on Samson. In the midst of preparing, I learned much about him. Most church goers only remember Samson as the dude who let Delilah trick him and cut off his hair. However, Samson screwed up well before Delilah showed up on the scene. As an Israelite, Samson had covenant. As a nazirite, Samson had vows. Unfortunately, he apparently didn't really care about these. Samson first asks his parents to get him a pretty Philistine woman as his bride. Since they were Israelites, Samson should have found himself a good Israelite girl and settled with her, as his parents reminded him. However, he was determined and they gave in. There goes his respect for the covenant of Israel. Then, he kills a lion in the vineyards of Timnah when going to visit the woman and doesn't tell anyone or go through the ritual cleansing. There goes his nazirite vow (part 1). Obviously, Samson needs to turn himself around or wind up well beyond the good graces of God. The story just keeps getting worse- he breaks his vow multiple other times. Finally, God gives up. After he finally tells Delilah the truth about his strength and his nazirite vow, it says "he did not know that the Lord had left him" (Judges 16:20). Samson refused to be committed to his God, instead choosing the evil things of this world to be his place.
The song for this post is indeed titled Samson and is by Regina Spektor. The opening and closing lines for the song are "You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first, I loved you first." What do we depend on instead of God? What is the thing we have trouble putting God before? Our husband, wife, children? Samson had his desires, and of course his women. If we can say I loved you first to anything, or anyone, other than God then we too will fall. And then our sweetest downfall will have gotten the best of us as well.

Death by Numbers

So today was the most frightening Halloween ever for Geoff and I. We were driving back from the Baylor UT game (yay bears!) this afternoon during the massive accident on 35 involving an oil drill semi-truck. We watched the entire thing happen, from the semi barreling down the road behind us to it sideswiping my side of the car to it taking out a lamppost and flipping over the median. Had it been just a few inches further over, I would certainly not be sitting here typing this right now. And it's highly possible I wouldn't be typing anything ever again. Miraculously, no one was killed or even very seriously injured in the whole thing. The news says there were 6 cars and the semi involved, but I for sure counted more like 8 cars.
It still seems unreal. I see the truck coming at me in my head, then expect to hear a big crash and be done for, but here I am. We were certainly able to see God at work today. There is no way every one of us there should have walked away, yet we did. Even the semi driver came out alright.
I wish I could think of a clean tie to what I've been reading in Judges this weekend, but I honestly can not put my thought together quite that much right yet.