Skip to main content

With Him

             One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.” (I Samuel 16:18)

          This won’t be long because I’ve been on the road since 7:30 this morning and it’s after 11 pm. After this one, I won’t have ready access to the internet for a few days, so I will post when I can.

          But, this verse stood out as I listened to I Samuel-I Chronicles today. Saul was in a pickle. He had failed miserably and more than once, and God had rejected him as king. The Lord had been with him, but the Lord was no longer with him. So when one of his servants said that the Lord is with David, I wondered if perhaps the reason Saul wanted David around was in hopes of having the Lord with him through David, so to speak. And he did. That was the problem. The Lord blessed what David did, and it’s a blessing that Saul believed he should have had. No wonder Saul rode a pendulum in his reactions to David.

          There’s a saying attributed to Denzel Washington that “Some people will never like you because your spirit irritates their demons.” I suspect the more correct version of this is that some people will never like you because His Spirit irritates their demons. It doesn’t have to be real demons – because demons can’t possess or inhabit Christians, but there is another sort of demon – our sinful flesh – and His Spirit, especially in others – can irritate that.

          The last interesting thing about this as I listened this morning is that I doubt David, Joseph, Daniel, you, or I realize that the Lord is with them/you/me. But other people might notice it. I don’t think I’m any good at recognizing the Lord being with anyone. But it would be a good thing to pray for—that we would see the Lord in others.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more