Talk to God - Not to Yourself

 

Talk to God – Not to Yourself

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt. 11:28-30 – The Message)

Your Goliath owns a weapon, but it doesn’t fire bullets; it fires sadness, instead. It doesn’t take lives; it takes smiles. It doesn’t inflict flesh wounds; it inflicts faith wounds. Ever been hit? If you can’t find your rhythm, you have. If you can’t seem to get to first base, or even out of bed for that matter, you have. Every step forward gets lost in two steps backward. Relationships sour. Skies darken. Your nights defy the sunrise. You’ve been hit. It’s like your problems are the Sioux, and you’re feeling a lot like Custer – definitely on your last stand.

David feels like it’s his. Saul has been getting the best of David, leaving him sleeping in caves and lurking behind trees. Six hundred soldiers depend on David for leadership and provision, and these six hundred men have wives and children. David has two wives of his own which probably guarantees a little tension in his tent as well. Running from a crazed king. Hiding in hills. Leading a ragtag group of soldiers. Feeding more than a thousand mouths. And the enemy’s weapon has found its mark. Listen to David: “David thought to himself, ‘Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I’ll be out of his reach for good.’” (1 Sam. 27:1) No hope and, most of all, no God. David focuses on Saul. He hangs Saul’s poster on his wall, replays his voicemail messages and re-reads his texts. David immerses himself in his fear until his fear takes over: “I will be destroyed.”

He knows better, however, because in brighter seasons and healthier moments David modeled heaven’s therapy for tough days. The first time he faced the Philistines in the wilderness, “David inquired of the Lord.” (1 Sam. 23:2) When he felt small against his enemy, “David inquired of the Lord.” (23:4) When attacked by the Amalekites, “David inquired of the Lord.” (30:8) Puzzled about what to do after the death of Saul, “David inquired of the Lord.” (2 Sam. 2:1) When crowned as king and pursued by the Philistines, “David inquired of the Lord.” (5:19) David defeated them, yet they mounted another attack, so “David inquired of the Lord.” (5:23) In other words, David kept God’s number on speed dial. Confused? David talked to God. Challenged? He talked to God. Afraid? He talked to God . . . most of the time. But not this time.

On this occasion, David talks to himself. He doesn’t even seek the counsel of his advisers. When Saul first lashed out, David turned to the prophet, Samuel. As the attacks continued, David asked his friend Jonathan for advice. When weaponless and breadless, he took refuge among the priests at Nob. In this case, however, David consults David. Poor choice. Look at the advice he gives himself: “Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me.” (1 Sam. 27:1)

No, he won’t, David. Don’t you remember the golden oil of Samuel pouring over your head and hair? God anointed you. Don’t you remember God’s promise through Jonathan? “You shall be king over Israel.” (23:17) Have you forgotten the assurance God gave you through Abigail? “The Lord will keep all his promises of good things for you. He will make you leader over Israel.” (25:30) God even assured your safety through Saul himself: “I know indeed that you shall surely be king.” (24:20) What further guarantees do you need?

But in a wave of weariness, David hits the pause button on good thoughts and thinks, “Sooner or later, Saul’s going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. Saul will count me a lost cause and quit hunting me down in every nook and cranny of Israel. I’ll be out of his reach for good.” (27:1) So David leaves, and Saul, predictably, calls off the hunt. David defects into the hands of the enemy. He leads his men into the land of idols and false gods and pitches his tent in Goliath’s backyard. He plops down in the pasture of Satan himself.

Initially, David feels relief. Saul gives up the chase. David’s men can sleep with both eyes closed. Children can attend kindergarten, and wives can unpack the suitcases. Hiding out with the enemy brings temporary relief. But doesn’t it usually? Stop resisting drugs, and you’ll laugh — for a while. Move out on your spouse, and you’ll relax — for a time. Indulge in porn, and you’ll be entertained — for a season. But then the talons of temptation sink in. Waves of guilt crash in. The loneliness of breaking up rushes in. “There’s a way of life that looks harmless enough but look again — it leads straight to hell. Sure, those people appear to be having a good time, but all that laughter will end in heartbreak.” (Prov. 14:12–13)

Listen to the third stanza of David’s song of the slump. In verse one, “he wore out.” So, “he got out.” And in order to survive in the enemy camp, David “sells out.” He strikes a deal with Achish, the king of Gath: “Give me a place in one of the cities in the country, that I may live there; for why should your servant live in the royal city with you?” (1 Sam. 27:5) Note David’s self-assigned title: the “servant” of the enemy king. The once-proud son of Israel and conqueror of Goliath lifts a toast to the arch-enemy of his family. And Achish welcomes the deal. He grants David a village, Ziklag, and asks only that David turn against his own people and kill them. And, as far as Achish knows, David does just that. But David actually raids the enemies of the Hebrews: “Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites. . . . Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels, and clothes. Then he returned to Achish.” (27:8–9)

Not David’s finest hour, to say the least. He lies to the Philistine king and covers up his deceit with bloodshed. He continues this duplicity for sixteen months. Not surprisingly, there are no psalms from this almost year and a half season of David’s life. His harp hangs silent. The slump mutes the minstrel. And things get worse before they get better.

The Philistines decide to attack King Saul. David and his men opt to switch sides and join the opposition. Envision U.S. armed forces joining Hezbollah. They journey three days to the battlefield, get rejected, and then travel three days home. “The Philistine officers said, . . . ‘He’s not going into battle with us. He’d switch sides in the middle of the fight!’” (1 Sam. 29:4) So, David leads his unwanted men back to Ziklag, only to find the village had been burned to the ground. The Amalekites had destroyed it while David and his men were away, and had kidnapped all of their wives, sons and daughters. When David and his men see the devastation, they weep until they’re “exhausted with weeping.” (30:4) Rejected by the Philistines. Pillaged by the Amalekites. No country to fight for. No family to come home to. Can matters grow worse? Yes, unfortunately, they can.

Anger flares in the soldiers’ eyes. David’s men start looking for rocks. “The people in their bitterness said he should be stoned.” (30:6) We have to wonder at this point whether David is regretting his decision? Longing for simpler days in the wilderness, David? The good ol’ cave days, David? No Philistine rejection or Amalekite attacks there. His men loved him. His wives were with him. Now, in the ruins of Ziklag with men picking up stones to throw at him, does he regret his prayerless choice to get out and sell out? You be the judge.

Slumps. The petri dish for bad decisions, the incubator for wrong turns, the assembly line of regrettable moves. How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time. So, how do you handle yours? When hope takes the last train and joy is nothing but the name of the little girl who used to live next door, or when you’re tired of trying, tired of forgiving, tired of hard weeks or hard-headed people, how do you manage your dark days? With a bottle of pills or a fifth of scotch? With an hour at the bar, a day at the spa, or a week at the coast?

Many opt for those diversions. So many, in fact, that we assume that they reenergize a sad life. But do they? No one denies that they help for a while, but over the long haul? They numb the pain, but do they remove it? Or are we like the sheep on the Turkish cliff? Who knows why the first one jumped over the edge. Even more bizarre are the fifteen hundred others who followed, each leaping off the same overhang. The first 450 animals died. The thousand that followed survived only because the pile of corpses below cushioned their fall. And we, like sheep, follow each other over the edge, falling headlong into bars, binges and beds. Like David, we crash into Gath, only to find that Gath isn’t the solution. But is there a solution? Yes, there is. It’s doing right what David did wrong. He failed to pray. You do the opposite – be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself, and talk to Christ, instead.

He’s the one who invites: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.” (Matt. 11:28) God, who is never downcast, never tires of your down days. David neglected good advice. So, learn from his mistake. Next time you lack the will to go on, seek healthy counsel. You won’t want to of course because slumping people love slumping people, and hurting people like to hang out with hurting people. We love those with whom we can commiserate and avoid those who correct us. Yet correction and direction are the very things we need. “Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.” (Prov. 15:22) Or “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (27:17) Be quick to pray, seek healthy counsel and don’t give up.

Don’t make the mistake that Florence Chadwick did. In 1952 she attempted to swim the chilly ocean waters between Catalina Island and the Palos Verdes peninsula; a distance of some 26 miles. She swam through foggy weather and choppy seas for fifteen hours. Her muscles began to cramp, and her resolve had weakened. She begged to be taken out of the water but her mother, riding in a boat alongside her, urged Florence not to give up. She kept trying but grew exhausted and eventually stopped swimming. When aids lifted her out of the water and into the boat, they paddled a few more minutes and as the mist broke Florence discovered that the shore was less than a half mile away. “All I could see was the fog,” she explained at a news conference. “I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”

Take a long look at the shore that awaits you. Don’t be fooled by the fog of the slump. The finish may be only strokes away. God may be, at this very moment, lifting his hand to signal Gabriel to grab the trumpet. Angels may be assembling, saints gathering, demons trembling. Stay at it. Stay in the water. Stay in the race. Stay in the fight. Give grace – one more time. Be generous – one more time. Teach one more class, encourage one more soul, swim one more stroke.

David did. Right there in the smoldering ruins of Ziklag, he found his strength. After sixteen months in Gath, the Philistine rejection, the Amalekite attack, and the insurrection by his men, he remembered what to do. “David found strength in the Lord his God.” (1 Sam. 30:6) He quit talking to himself and started talking to God. With whom are you consulting?

Grace,

Randy

The Power of Kindness

 

The Power of Kindness

The Power of Kindness - Audio/Visual 

My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts. (1 John 4:7-12)

Ernest Gordon groaned in the Death House of Chungkai, Burma. He listened to the moans of the dying and smelled the stench of the dead. Unrelenting jungle heat baked his skin and parched his throat. If he had had the strength, he could have wrapped one hand around his bony thigh. But he had neither the energy nor the interest. Diphtheria had drained him of both. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even feel his body. He shared a cot with flies and bedbugs and awaited a lonely death in a Japanese POW camp.

The war had been harsh on him, to say the least. He’d entered World War II in his early twenties, a robust Highlander in Scotland’s Argyle and Sutherland Brigade. But then came the capture by the Japanese, months of backbreaking labor in the jungle, daily beatings, and slow starvation. Scotland was just a dim memory. And civility? Even dimmer. The Allied soldiers behaved like barbarians – stealing from each other, robbing dying colleagues and fighting for food scraps. Servers shortchanged rations so they could have extra for themselves. The law of the jungle had become the law of the camp. And Gordon was happy to bid it adieu. Death by disease trumped life in Chungkai. But then something wonderful happened.

Two new prisoners were transferred to the camp. Though they were also sick and frail, they heeded a higher code. They shared their meager meals with the other prisoners and volunteered for extra work. They cleaned Gordon’s ulcerated sores and massaged his atrophied legs. They gave him his first bath in six weeks. His strength slowly returned and, with it, his dignity. And their goodness proved contagious because Gordon eventually contracted their “disease.” He began to treat the sick and share his rations, too. He even gave away what was left of his few belongings. Other soldiers had done likewise. Over time, the tone of the entire camp softened and brightened. Sacrifice replaced selfishness. Soldiers held worship services and Bible studies.

Twenty years later, when Gordon served as chaplain of Princeton University, he described the transformation with these words: Death was still with us — no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. . . .Selfishness, hatred . . . and pride were all anti-life. Love, . . . self-sacrifice . . . and faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life . . . gifts of God to men. . . . Death no longer had the last word at Chungkai.

 Selfishness, hatred, and pride — you don’t have to go to a POW camp to find any one of them. A dormitory will do just fine. As will the Board room of a corporation, or the bedroom of a marriage, or the backwoods of a county. The code of the jungle is alive and well. Every man for himself; get all you can and can all you get; survival of the fittest.

Does that kind of code contaminate your world? Do personal possessive pronouns dominate the language of your circle? My career, My dreams, My stuff. I want things to go My way on My schedule. If so, you know how savage that monster can be. Yet, every so often, a diamond glitters in the rough. A comrade shares. A soldier cares. Or an Abigail stands in the middle of your trail.

She lived in the days of David and was married to Nabal, whose name in Hebrew means “fool.” He lived up to the definition. Think of him as sort of the Saddam Hussein of the territory. He owned cattle and sheep and took pride in both. He kept his liquor cabinet full, his date life hot, and motored around in a stretch limo. His Lakers seats were front row, his jet was Lear, and he was prone to hop over to Vegas for a weekend of Texas Hold ’em. Half a dozen linebacker-sized security guards followed him wherever he went. And Nabal needed the protection.

He was “churlish and ill-behaved — a real Calebbite dog. . . . He is so ill-natured that one cannot speak to him.” (1 Sam. 25:3, 17) He learned people skills at the local zoo. He never met a person he couldn’t anger or offend, or a relationship he couldn’t ruin. Nabal’s world revolved around only one person — Nabal. He owed nothing to anybody and laughed at the thought of sharing with anyone, especially with the likes of David.

In those days, David was like the Robin Hood of the wilderness. He and his 600 soldiers protected the farmers and shepherds from thieves. Israel didn’t have CHP or a police force, so David and his men met a definite need in the countryside. In fact, they guarded so effectively it prompted one of Nabal’s shepherds to muse, “Night and day they were a wall around us all the time we were herding our sheep near them.” (25:16) But David and Nabal co-habited the territory with the harmony of two bulls in the same pasture. Both strong, and stronger-headed. It was just a matter of time before they’d collide.

Trouble began to brew just after the harvest. With the sheep sheared and the hay gathered, it was time to bake bread, roast lamb and pour wine. You know, take a break from the furrows and flocks and enjoy the fruit of their labor. And as we pick up the story, Nabal’s men are doing just that. David hears about the party and thought his men deserved an invitation. After all, they’ve protected the man’s crops and sheep, patrolled the hills and secured the valleys. They deserve a bit of the bounty. So, David sends ten men to Nabal with this request: “We come at a happy time, so be kind to my young men. Please give anything you can find for them and for your son David.” (25:8)

Nabal, however, laughs at the thought: “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” (25:10–11) In other words, Nabal pretends he’s never heard of David, lumping him in with runaway slaves and gypsies. Well, Nabal’s insolence infuriates the messengers, and they turn on their heels and hurry back to give David a complete report.

David doesn’t need to hear the report twice. He tells the men to form a posse. Or, more accurately, “Strap on your swords!” (1 Sam. 25:12) So, four hundred men mount up and take off. Eyes glare. Nostrils flare. Lips snarl. Testosterone flows. David and his troops thunder down on Nabal – who’s obliviously swilling beer and eating barbecue with his buddies. The road rumbles as David grumbles, “May God do his worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren’t dead meat by morning!” (25:22). In other words, it’s the Wild West in the Ancient East.

Then, all of a sudden, beauty appears. It’s as if a daisy had lifted her head in the desert, or a whiff of perfume had floated through the men’s locker room. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, stands in the middle of the trail. Whereas Nabal’s brutish and mean, she’s “intelligent and good-looking.” (25:3) Brains and beauty. And Abigail puts both to work. When she learns of Nabal’s crude response, she springs into action. And without a word to her husband, she gathers a bunch of gifts and races to intercept David. And as David and his men descend a ravine, she takes her position armed with “two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, . . . all loaded on some donkeys.” (25:18)

Four hundred men immediately rein in their rides. Some gape at the food, while others check out the chick. She’s good looking and a good cook – a combination that would stop any army. And Abigail’s no fool. She knows the importance of the moment. She stands as the final barrier between her family and certain death. Falling at David’s feet, she issues a plea worthy of a paragraph in Scripture. “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be! And please let your maid-servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your maid-servant.” (25:24)

She doesn’t defend Nabal; she agrees that he’s a jerk. She doesn’t beg for justice. She begs for forgiveness instead, accepting blame when she deserves none. “Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant.” (25:28) She offers the gifts from her house and urges David to leave Nabal to God and avoid the dead weight of remorse. Her words fall on David like a hot July sun on ice. David melts. “Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to meet me! That was a close call! . . . If you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat. . . . I’ve heard what you’ve said, and I’ll do what you’ve asked.” (25:32–35)

So, David returns to camp with the food, and Abigail returns to Nabal. She finds him too drunk for conversation, so she waits until the next morning to describe how close David came to camp, and how close Nabal came to death. “Right then and there he had a heart attack and fell into a coma. About ten days later God finished him off and he died.” (25:37–38) When David learns of Nabal’s death and Abigail’s sudden availability, he thanks God for the former and takes advantage of the latter. Unable to shake the memory of the pretty woman in the middle of the road, he proposes, and she accepts. David gets a new wife, Abigail gets a new life, and we have a great principle: beauty can overcome barbarism.

Meekness saved the day that day. Abigail’s gentleness reversed a river of anger. Humility has such power. Apologies can disarm arguments. Contrition can defuse rage. Olive branches do more good than battle-axes ever will. “Soft speech can crush strong opposition.” (Prov. 25:15)

Abigail teaches us a lot – the contagious power of kindness; the strength of a gentle heart. Her greatest lesson, however, is to take our eyes from her beauty and set them on someone else’s. She lifts our thoughts from a rural trail to a Jerusalem cross. Abigail never knew Jesus. She lived a thousand years before his sacrifice. Nevertheless, her story prefigures his life because Abigail placed herself between David and Nabal, just as Jesus placed himself between God and us. Abigail volunteered to be punished for Nabal’s sins just as Jesus allowed heaven to punish him for yours and mine. Abigail turned away the anger of David. Christ shielded you from God’s. He was our “Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.” (1 Tim. 2:5–6) A mediator is one who stands in between. And Christ stood in between God’s anger and our punishment. In other words, Christ intercepted the wrath of heaven that was aimed at our sin.

Something remotely similar happened at the Chungkai camp. One evening after a work detail, a Japanese guard announced that a shovel was missing. The officer kept the Allies in formation, insisting that someone had stolen it. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty man step forward. He shouldered his rifle, ready to kill one prisoner at a time until a confession was made. A Scottish soldier broke ranks, stood stiffly at attention, and said, “I did it.” With that admission, the officer unleashed his anger and beat the man to death. When the guard was finally exhausted, the prisoners picked up the man’s body and their tools and returned to camp. Only then were the shovels counted again and the Japanese soldier had made a mistake. A shovel wasn’t missing after all. So, who does that kind of thing? What kind of person would take the blame for something he didn’t do? When you find the adjective, attach it to Jesus.

“God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.” (Isa. 53:6) God treated his innocent Son like the guilty human race, his Holy One like a lying scoundrel, his Abigail like a Nabal. Christ lived the life we could not live and took the punishment we could not take to offer the hope we cannot resist. And his sacrifice begs this question: If he loves us so much, can’t we love each other? Having been forgiven, can’t we forgive? Having feasted at the table of grace, can’t we share a few of the crumbs? “My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.” (1 John 4:11)

Do you find your Nabal-world hard to stomach? Then do what David did: stop staring at your Nabal and shift your gaze to Christ. Look more at the Mediator and less at the troublemakers. “Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.” (Rom. 12:21) One prisoner can change a camp, and one Abigail can save an entire family. That’s the power of kindness.

Grace,

Randy