A Wise Ruling

King Solomon sat on his throne, listening to the musicians play. The herald walked in and raised his hand for the king's attention. "Yes?"

"Milord, two women demand an audience with you."

"Very well, I will see them."

The herald inclined his head, then departed. Solomon held up a hand to stop the musicians as the herald reentered with two prostitutes who were whispering angrily to each other as they approached. One held a baby, while the other clamored for it. The herald cleared his throat noisily, and the women seemed to remember where they were. After awkward bows, one woman raised her eyes to the king and began to speak, barely keeping the anger out of her voice. "My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us. During the night this woman's son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn't the son I had borne."

Solomon opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the woman holding the baby piped in. "No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours!"

But the first one insisted, "No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine! You know perfectly well -" What were once whispers became shouts, and the two women argued noisily, shouting at the same time.

The king rolled his eyes. "Excuse me!... Ladies?... Ahem!... Ladies... SILENCE!!!!!!!"

The two stopped shouting and looked back up at the king, waiting. "So let me get this straight," Solomon began. "You each think that the baby is yours?"

The women nodded.

"And you cannot come to any agreement?"

The women shook their heads.

"Very well." The king turned to the herald. "Bring me a sword."

The women glanced at each other. The herald placed a sword in the king's hand, then held out his hands for the baby. The woman, confused, handed the baby to the herald. "Wha - what are you gonna..."

The king looked at his reflection in the sword he held. "We shall cut the child in two. That way you may each have half."

The first woman's eyes widened. "Oh no! Don't kill him! You may give him to the other woman, just don't kill him!"

The other woman shrugged. "Well, now neither of us will have him. I suppose it is the only thing to do!"

Solomon smiled. He looked at the herald. "Give the baby to the first woman - she is his real mother."

If God doesn't go with us

Yesterday in church, my pastor showed us a quote that went something like:

"If the Holy Spirit somehow suddenly disappeared from the earth, most of the Church's work would continue unabated."

Wha? Heheh. Chew on THAT one for a few minutes and figure if that's correct in your church or, more importantly - your life. If the Holy Spirit somehow left, would you know for certain that something was wrong?

This morning I read about the Israelites after the golden calf and all these other things that showed their bull-headedness. God was angry, and said:

"Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way."

"God will not go with us???" Everyone said. They started to mourn and cry. They did not want to go without God. Since God was still pleased with Moses, he changed his mind and went with them.

But that's not the point, it's just to give it a happy ending. The point is, what if God WEREN'T going with us in what we did? Would we notice? Do we take advantage of the fact that he is with us in all that we do?

Why the Wait?

I've recently been thinking/praying about a certain something that just doesn't seem to be clear. There's no doubt it is from God, I just have no idea what he wants out of me about it! Rather strange... usually when I feel called to do something I know when I AM called to it and what to do to some extent. But this is just confusing! Today I read where all these army officers went up to Jeremiah and asked him to pray to God for them. They believed what he so blatantly proclaimed about being captives in Babylon, and asked, "Pray that the LORD your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do." My thoughts exactly. Then it said, "Ten days later" the word from God came to Jeremiah on the subject. Ten days? Now, not that ten days is that much of a long time for us, but it seems like here, when Babylon is getting closer and closer and God spoke to people just in conversation, ten days is a wait!

Why the wait? To me, it seems like the sooner we have direction, the better we can carry things out! But I suppose God knows what he's doing, no matter how much it annoys us. But as it turned out, these guys that needed direction didn't obey the direction God gave them after this wait. It didn't fit in with their original plan, and they didn't trust that this was the best road to take, mostly because of their fear. Whatever God ends up asking of me, I want to do it! I don't want to back out just because it's out of my comfort zone, or unusual, or I feel like others won't support the idea, or because it's impossible. I want to do it! I want to get it done!

If you have a spare minute, please pray that I WON'T back out on... whatever it is, whatever happens. And maybe that God will hurry up and put me out of confusion!:P

Our Job

Well, according to my Bible reading plan, I was supposed to read in Jeremiah. I don't really care for Jeremiah, for some reason it's a tough read for me. But today I was reading and lots of things were underlined with notes and cool stuff I forgot about! "Whoa! Who knew this stuff was in Jeremiah?" BUT guess what? It wasn't in Jeremiah. I read in Isaiah. For some reason I didn't noticed the little word ISAIAH at the top of each page until the end... not good for the confidence!:P BUT who cares, I found another neat passage anyway!!! It talks about our job.

"This is what God the LORD says—

he who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,

who gives breath to its people,

and life to those who walk on it:
"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;

I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people

and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,

to free captives from prison

and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."

When you hear of the cool things the police do, and the army search and rescue stuff, you think, "Whoa, cool!!!!!!!!! Those people are so neat!" Tough, fearless, skilled, and ready!!! Don't mean to bust this in on ya folks, but guess what? That's what God calls us to do for souls! We hare supposed to free captives from prison and show them the narrow way out of the cell!

Are we AWOL? Are we stepping out to do what God has called us to do?

Walk Forward

I was listening to the radio this morning, and someone called in and told a story about himself and his 4 year old son that I thought was pretty neat. He said that he was out cutting wood in the woods outside their house, and his son came to the door. The son didn't like to go into the creepy woods where everything scratched at him, so he started yelling. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where are yoooooooooooooooou?????? DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!"

The dad called back. "I'm right over here!"

"I can't see you!!!!!!"

"Well just come over here - I can see you and I won't let anything get you."

"But I don't know where you are!"

"That's ok, just walk this way if you want me. I see you from here."

So the son walked forward and saw the dad and they hung out cutting wood and having a good time.

How often is that like our relationship with God? We yell, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!! Where are yooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooou????? I can't see yooooooooooooou!!!!!!!!" But He can see us! We don't have to see him right away - just follow his direction and walk forward!

"One thing God has spoken,

two things I have heard:

that you, O God, are strong,

and that you, O LORD, are loving."

Standing around doing nothing

Well, I know I often say I love my church and that that's old news, but guess what? My church EVEN has a great back-up pastor when ours is out! Dr. Bentley spoke today about growing. How do we grow? Growing is working hard at things, studying in order to know things, exercising our body to stay healthy, etc. But he told us that most people stop growing at the age of 40! It may be because they don't NEED to grow more to get the job done, or that they have more fun things to do, yadayadayada. As kids we have to learn or not get to wear the dorky blue hat(:P), but you don't have to be 40 for this to fit: are we growing spiritually? Are we studying and listening to God and others who know more than us? Or are we standing around doing nothing in our faith. There are times when I say something like, "Oh, well. I'll read more Bible tomorrow" or "it's just Sunday morning church... lah-dee-dah". Dr. Bentley said that when you stand around, content with where you are, you are ineffective. It's like a dull knife. I don't want to be ineffective - I wanna be sharp!

Join me in staying on top of life - growing in wisdom and stature (maybe:P) and in favor with God and man!

Different Gifts

This isn't something deep really, just something I thought was funny out of my Bible reading.

I personally think Paul is the best writer in the whole Bible. But in 2 Cor, he says, "Some say, "His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing." It made me giggle to think of Paul being a wallflower in the Corinthian church! Since we all only know Paul through his writings, we think of him as impressive and witty and smart, and hence a good speaker. But God didn't make him amazing at everything - but writing was all he needed to reach people even 2000 years later!

Ok, that was probably pointless to everybody... but I thought it was kinda cool.