Thoughts - August 27 - 1 Kings 19:4

"It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."
1 Kings 19:4 ESV


If you open up your Bible and turn to the vicinity of our key verse, you'll probably recognize some of the events around this passage. Just before this is Elijah's famous battle with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, when Elijah and God set Israel straight on who was God and who wasn't in a rather clear and decisive manner. From there, Elijah declared an end to the long drought in the land, and saw it come to pass. Unfortunately, this was followed by the queen Jezebel, who wasn't particularly nice, sending some rather nasty threats to Elijah. And, in spite of the anticipated spiritual high at this point, Elijah got scared out of his wits and ran. After running for a day out into the wilderness, he stopped and uttered the cry that is our key verse.

There is a very traditional sermon that begins much like this. It's all about seeing things through God's eyes, or something like that. If you've been to church enough, you've heard it, and you know that Elijah gets a pretty bum rap for appearing to give up on God after everything that's happened. Let me submit to you that this interpretation is incorrect.

Why is that reading incorrect? For one simple reason: what Elijah did was absolutely correct! To see why, let's examine what he actually said. He makes two statements here, first, "It is enough", and, second, "I am no better than my fathers", and from that a conclusion and request, "now, O Lord, take away my life".

"It is enough" is kind of brief. For Elijah, it was even more so - in Hebrew, it's one word, rab. (More than you ever wanted to know about it here) But it was a simple and profound statement of his condition. Basically, what he's saying here is "I've had all I can take." It's the same phrase God uses in 2 Samuel 24:16, when He stops the destruction of Israel because He can't stand to see any more. And Elijah was definitely right - over the course of a couple of days, he'd challenged an entire nation, crippled a religion, outrun a chariot, and then topped it off with a day's trip in the desert. And now he was physically, emotionally, and spiritually spent, and he knew it.

He followed this with "I am no better than my fathers." "Fathers" here could refer to his physically ancestry, or it could refer to the prophets that had come before him. And there is truth in both sides. First, in the light of the acts of God he had just witnessed, his own imperfection and sinfulness was readily apparent. All the thing he had done for God, while good, hadn't made him significantly better than his countrymen - he too had sinned, so that it's easy to understand him saying, like Paul later would, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) Second, at least from his view, he had accomplished his divine mission as well as the prophets of old had. Which, considering how deep into apostasy Israel was, wasn't particularly well. In spite of all he had done for God, all he still saw was rebellion (see v. 10). So, basically, he acknowledged his utter incompetence for the task he had been appointed to.

With these in mind, it's little wonder that his request to God was to let him die - he had given his all, and was found wanting still. He had utterly failed in his God-given task, and had nothing left with which to try again. Truly a depressing state to be in. But Elijah's wisdom was two-fold: he was completely, simply, and utterly honest about his condition, and in his honesty submitted himself to the will and care of the one Person who could address his needs.

What's truly interesting, beyond that, is what happened afterward. God didn't come and give Elijah a pep talk. Nor did He send a messenger come to cheer him with good tidings from Israel. In the face of absolute honesty, the Lord was quiet, for in fact He had nothing to add or correct. What He did do, however, was begin to provide Elijah with what he needed to be restored. God wasn't going to meet with His prophet in the middle of the wilderness. Instead, He gave Elijah what he needed to come to Him. And, thus strengthened by God's care, Elijah went, not north back to Israel, but south, "to Horeb, the mount of God." (v. 8)

Thoughts - August 24 - Isaiah 43:19

"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
(Isaiah 43:19)


You may not know this, but I enjoy taking passages like this, that are often seen out of context, and putting them back into it. It's not that the interpretation is necessarily wrong, but it is incomplete.

In this whole portion of the book of Isaiah, God is giving Israel this amazing two-sided message. First, they're a bunch of rebellious evildoers who should know better. See, for example, 42:18-20, "Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord?" Basically, the chosen people, rather than being heralds of God's truth, were not just as bad as the nations around them, but worse, since they should have known better.

At the same time, though, out of His unspeakable love, God had chosen to forgive and redeem them. In 43:25, one can almost feel His anguish over them and their refusal to acknowledge Him: "I, I am He, who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." Verse 12: "I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you" to confuse you as to Who it was!

So, as our key verse says, God had decided on a new approach. Even though Judah had ignored His many, many appeals to them, He refused to give up. Being a smart guy, He knew that the same old, same old wouldn't work. So, out of His love, he went back to the drawing board. And came up with Babylon.

Now, if you're going to be corrected by the Creator, you generally want Him to speak to you and tell you. If that doesn't work, or if you're part of a large group on the same wrong path, a prophet might be nice. What you probably don't want is for a foreign nation to come in, destroy your land, and carry you off into exile!

Israel's history shows that this isn't what God wanted either. He tried for centuries to reach them in the nice way, but it just didn't work. So, did He finally tire of them and abandon them? No! He gave them what they needed, and, further, promised His help while they went through it and recovered from it (43:1-7).

Now, did it work? Somewhat. Judaism since then has been much closer to God in the millennia since then than it was before. Did it work perfectly? No - when God Himself, in Christ, came to fully claim His own, they rejected Him. But even that wasn't the last straw for them, either. Though they were destroyed again in A.D. 70, the last century has witnessed yet another restoration of Israel, and with it a significant number of the Jews finding Christ.

I would submit to you that there is a definite parallel to this in our lives. God will try to speak to you and correct you as gently as possible, because He loves you. If you ignore Him in that, though, He won't abandon you; because He loves you, He may turn up the heat. But, if He does, He'll get you through it, too, and you will come out on the other end.

So, if you're going through a time of trial, turn to Him, and see if He's trying to get through to you. If you're not, but you've been trying to ignore Him, rethink that plan before He has to try a little harder. And, in whatever happens, trust Him - He really does love you!


"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine."
- Hymn, "How Firm a Foundation"

Thoughts - August 22 - Revelation 21:6

I'm going to call these "Thoughts", at least for now. I'm not sure I'm quite up to writing "Devotions" yet. And, hey, if I am, the little extra dose of humility might not be a bad thing either...


"And He said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment." (Rev. 21:6)


I was surprised reading over some of what I've written over the past few months how much I've focused on change. The more I consider it, the more I find that change is very interesting, because it's a continuing process: each end always holds a new beginning, and each new beginning bears the seeds of an end. The cycle self-perpetuates, and the only way to attempt to avoid it is to stretch out the period of time between beginnings and ends. Some try to do this by never beginning anything at all, and, while I suppose this may work, it seems like a miserable way to live. Others grasp the now for all it's worth, trying desperately to keep pushing the end off. This is, unfortunately, a losing battle. So what are we to do?

It's in that spirit that I've considered this rather well-known passage from Revelation. It's an awe-inspiring statement, signaling the end of Earth and Heaven as we know them, and the inauguration of our eternity with Christ. But I want to pull out a couple of details.

First, He is. It doesn't read 'I was the Alpha and will be the Omega.' It says "I am"! It echoes Christ's "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58) To Him, the beginning and the end are both in the present - "I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done," (Isaiah 46:9-10)

Second, He's not an end, or a beginning - He's THE beginning and end. There's no beginning before Him, and no ending after Him. And, since to Him both exist at once, all the individual beginnings and ends converge towards those two poles, that are both Him.

Now, any RPI-type person who reads this will realize the implication quickly. By the Squeeze Theorem, if the beginnings and the ends each converge to God, then those things between them, which would include all events, must also converge to Him. In other words, "From Him and through Him and to Him are all things," (Rom. 11:36), including the events of our lives. Whether in the hard turning points of change or in the smoother times in between, we are always near to God.

If this is, then the case, then in whatever happens, we have a promise to live on. For the One who declares His omnipresence, in His very next statement, invites us to drink in the fullness of life with Him: "To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment." The promise is not only real - it's the gateway to all that God has in store for us!

Coming Soon!

Just to forewarn/excite you, I'm toying with the idea of posting a semi-regular devotional on here. Mainly to help me work out odd thoughts that strike me in my scripture reading, but perhaps also to edify others. If you're interested, stay tuned. I may even start tonight, depending on what happens.

Have fun!

Three Months Later...

Wow. I haven't posted in over three months. You'd think I was busy or something...

I never would have imagined back in May what was going to happen. And, in fact, it's just as well. Those whom I was honest with back in April and May knew that there was one place I did not want to end up at for the summer. And, much like ol' Jonah in the Old Testament, that one place was exactly where God sent me. Fortunately, unlike Jonah, it wasn't a bad place; it just wasn't where I wanted to be. For, you see, God made my plans fall apart, and in the end I found myself at home.

There were two reasons I wanted to avoid Florida. The first was the risk to the independence I had gained and learned to treasure during my time at RPI. Not independence to party wildly or do other various and sundry stupidity - that's not me. Rather, it was the freedom to determine my own schedule, to go where and when I wanted, to enjoy people, and to avoid people when I'd had enough. None of which really happens at home. Not that there's anything wrong or pushy with my family, but six people in one house makes the trampling of one's freedom a given. Plus, and I'll be completely honest, there was more than a little pride involved, too, that I was able to "make it" without my folks.

Beyond that, as previously stated, there were people too. RPI friends and church friends, all of whom I also love dearly. While I'd never attempt to denigrate familial love, there's something about love chosen that makes it much more compelling in everyday life. Maybe it's because the love of friends hasn't had nearly as long to solidify, so that it seems so much easier to lose. I don't know. What I do know, however, is that the only thing that still makes me unhappy about the situation is missing them as much as I do.

God has shown me, though, that He's had a plan. My Grandpa passed away last month, after fighting a losing battle in the hospital for a couple weeks. Had I been in Massachusetts, the whole thing would've been torture: even had I been able to get back and forth easily, I wouldn't have had the flexibility to take far more time off than a temp should to support my family. At home, working with my old boss, who's extremely good to me, it wasn't an issue. At all.

Beyond that, He's given me the chance to get some interesting things done at church. Things like actually participating in the eMinistries committee, learning more of the ins and outs of website work, continuing to try to get the website moving (almost there!), getting to know some people better, and exploring some new opportunities. Why I'm doing all of this here, and not helping to save a dieing church in Troy, I don't know.

He's also been working on the aforementioned pride, although I've still got some learning to do, based on the last sentence of the previous paragraph!

And, last but not least, He's been good to me with my friends. I haven't managed to keep up with all of them, but I've done a lot better than my usual number, which is ~0. AIM, GoogleTalk, and Skype are wonderful things. Blessings, in fact.

Oh, and believe it or not, I've used the telephone once or twice, and even snailmail. Rather low-tech, I admit, and I imagine there'll be some penance due for it when I return to RPI. Not sure what that would be, though. Maybe 39 lashes with a wet Cat5 cable?

Anyway, now comes the really fun part. Because, you see, I needed a co-op for the Fall. I tried to get back to Troy, and have ended up yet again - you guessed it - at home. I'm confident that God has a plan. And, knowing Him, it'll be amazing. All told, one never loses by following Christ's path.

"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25 ESV) If life itself, then how much more the details of it!

Have fun!