Thinking Clearly...

Odd, to me it seems, that my clearest thoughts and reasoning occur in that fragile real estate between consciousness and unconsciousness. The conscious mind is often cluttered by the weeds of distraction and the thoughts of sleep devolve into silliness.

Yet, somewhere between the two, is that thin beach where the distractions of the day play out and the silliness of dreams has not entered. It is there that the deep churnings of the mind and spirit bring good things to the shore and lay them at the edge of my consciousness.

I have found that I must scoop them up immediately. If I do not rouse and commit them to paper, they will be lost to the light of the morning. It is best that I close my eyes thinking of the things of God, and that I keep pen and pad near me as I sleep.

So, I sometimes spend a few minutes before I finally drift off, running from the beach to weeds trying to preserve the things that I find washing around in tidal pools of my mind. Then, with reluctance, I wade into the sea of sleep.

I just wish my rapid mid-night scrawl was a bit more legible.

"I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8 nkjv

What goes around comes around...

I want to show you a story about kindness that you may have never seen before. It is from the life of the great king of Israel, King David.


David is an interesting guy. We first start following his story when he is a shepherd boy in the Judean pastures. In the Bible we read about his triumphs, his trials, his failures and his comebacks. This story of kindness spans a great portion of his life.


In 2 Samuel 17:27-29 (esv) we read:

"When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, 'The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.'"

Here is the setting for these verses. David had a son (one of many) named Absalom. Absalom staged a coup against his father, and David and his household fled into the wilderness, running for their lives.

Now David (and company) left Jerusalem with little more than the clothes on their backs. There were women and children in the group, and David himself was now advancing in years. They had no food and no bedding. The situation was serious and getting worse.

As they were running they came to a place called Mahanaim. Word of the coup was spreading. They were met there by three men; Shobi, Machir, and Barzillai. These men helped David and his family in a time of desperation by bringing them bedding and some high calorie, high protein food.

Now remember, there was a coup underway, and these guys were sticking their necks out by picking sides. Why would they do such a thing? Why not hang back and see who was going to come out on top first?

There is an interesting story for each of these guys, but I want us to look at this fellow known as “Machir…of Lo-debar” for a minute.
  
Machir's back story

If we scroll back through the life of David to 2 Samuel chapter 9 we will find him as a much younger man. At this point in his life he is on top of the world. He has finally succeeded in defeating his enemies and the Kingdom of Israel has been consolidated under him.

Then he does a very classy, non-typical thing, especially for monarchs of that period in history. He sent for the crippled, orphaned grandson of the previous king, King Saul. The boy's name was Mephibosheth.  David brought the boy to sit continually at the royal table and restored to him his grandfather's property.

In this event, David sowed seeds of kindness in the way he treated this unfortunate child.  He had no way of knowing that some day those seeds would come to fruition in his own life.

How can we draw such a connection? Well, let's take a look at where they had to go to get Mephibosheth so they could bring him to the kings house:

"The king [David] said … 'Where is he?' And Ziba said to the king, 'He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.'" [2 Samuel 9:4 esv]

 Yes, that's right. It is the same guy. Many years before he had watched as David went out of his way to show kindness to this crippled orphan boy.  Now David was in need and it was payback time.  Funny how that turned out.

What goes around does come back around after all…

Baby, you're my "Life"!

 

In Genesis 2-3 the Bible gives us the account of the creation of our first parents. Here are some things you may not know.

1. The Hebrew word that is transliterated as the proper name “Adam” is used through out the Old Testament as a non-proper designation for “man” or “mankind”. While the translators of our English language Bibles are compelled by necessity and tradition to translate this word into a proper name for the first man, the God-given purpose of his name was to designate his order in creation. That is, he is called “adam” designating him as the one created from the dust but in the image of God, brought to life by the breath of God, and therefore in a standing higher than the animals.

2. “Adam” is one vowel sound different from the Hebrew word for “ground” which is pronounced “adamah”. This usually refers to inhabited or cultivated land.

It is quite conceivable that as God would walk into the garden to talk to Adam, his call is something equivalent to “hey, dirt guy”. Remember Adam is a guy. This name is as good as any other. (Hey, most men will adopt names and nicknames for themselves and for other men that very, very few women would ever be willing to carry.)

3. There is another word that is translated “man”. This words is the Hebrew word “ish” which is used to contrast between male and female. This is first used in Gen. 2:23.

4. The word used for woman or female is similar to “ish”. It is the word “ish-shah”. This is the word that the Bible uses for the first woman all of the way through the creation narrative down to Gen. 3:20.

 

I want to show you what changes in Genesis 3:20.

You may be familiar with the story of the “fall of man”, but if you are not you will need to read the first three chapters of Genesis for this to make sense. Here it is in a nut shell.

• The man (adam) and his wife (ish-shah) are created by God and placed in a garden paradise.
• They are occupied, but not overworked.
• Every need is supplied.
• They are in fellowship with God.
• They have one little restriction. They cannot eat the fruit from one tree, the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. If they do, they will die.
• Satan enters the picture and tempts the woman. She succumbs and eats the fruit.
• She give to her husband. He is not deceived, but he eats anyway [see 1 Timothy 2:14].
• God comes on the scene, and everything goes sideways.
• The curse falls on this world because of their sin. They will suffer. They will die.

Now imagine you are the woman.

She was “deceived”. In the midst of her disobedience to God, she genuinely thought she was doing the right thing. She gave him the “forbidden fruit.” She had not meant to harm Adam, but because he had eaten the fruit she handed to him…

Adam lost the best job in the world,
Adam lost the best home in the world (God soon evicts them from the garden),
He was now subject to sickness and disease,
Adam was sentenced to hard labor for the rest of his life, and
Adam would die.

Now as the woman stands there next to her husband, they are both the recipients of God's displeasure. She watches as her husband begins instantly to age. I am quite certain, she felt overwhelming guilt. She was guilty. They were both guilty.

Can you hear her weeping to Adam? “I’m so sorry. I’ve brought you misery and death. You would have been better off without me. I’ve messed your life up. Oh Adam, I am so, so sorry.”

Here is where verse 3:20 comes in:

“And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”

Look at that! Isn’t this an odd time for “dirt guy” to rename his bride? Up until now she has been known as “ish-shah” or “female”, but now she will be known as “Eve” which means “Life”.

Can you see it? There they stand guilty before an offended God, their beautiful life is crashing down around them and he turns to her and says, “Oh honey, you’re my ‘Life’!”


Then something curious happens:

Notice that when the man accused the woman and the woman accused the snake, God came down hard on everyone involved. Now the man shows tenderness and forgiveness to his wife and watch what happens in verse 21:

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

Was God withholding mercy until Adam showed mercy? I don’t know. I cannot draw such a causative link based on this verse alone, but I can tell you that that principle is consistent with the New Testament teachings of Jesus. Look at Matthew 6:12. This is from what we commonly call the “Lord’s Prayer”. Jesus said we are to pray,

“And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.”
esv

Then he goes on to explain,

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

This is probably the least favorite line of the Lord’s prayer. I’m afraid we often try to modify the Lord’s prayer and pray this way :

“God forgive me, and help me forgive everybody else.”

I’m sorry, but this isn’t a prayer consistent with Jesus pattern for us. The correct way to pray, according to Jesus, is to pray, “Father, forgive me as I forgive others…”

That kind of prayer really raises the bar on the importance of our forgiveness of others, doesn’t it? Here is the thing: if we live our lives harboring unforgiveness against other people, we have no expectation of forgiveness from our Heavenly Father.

We could certainly develop this train of thought a lot farther, but at some point you would stop reading. By now I think you probably get the point anyway. So, I'll leave you with this...

“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” -Mark 11:25 esv