Monday 30th June - Dear John...

DAILY BYTE

Have you ever been unfortunate enough to be rejected or broken up with in a letter? They call them ‘Dear John’ or ‘Dear Jane’ letters – it’s when someone is too afraid to break up with you in person, and so they write a letter delivering the bad news.

I remember receiving a ‘Dear John’ letter once. I was barely a teenager and had been going out with this girl for the grand total of 2 weeks. But these two weeks were intensely draining – there were constant tears and drama, and an endless pit of emotional neediness.

And that was just from me! You should have see how bad she was.

Anyway, she eventually decided that enough was enough and that the best way to get rid of me was to write a hastily scribbled note of rejection. This note was delivered by her best friend, who I must say, looked absolutely delighted to be the bearer of bad news.

This ‘Dear John’ note broke my 13 year old heart! She really should have known better though, because it only took another 7 years or so before someone else snapped me up.

Our focus reading for this week is taken from Matthew 7. 18-29 and at their very centre is this rather chilling sentence: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

As we read these words, we may be tempted to think – 'Is Jesus saying that one day God is going to send out a whole lot of Dear John letters? That God is going to unexpectedly break off his relationship with certain people?’

Now, I don’t think that is what this text is meaning at all. However, these words from Jesus are hard and challenging precisely because he meant them to be. They are not the kind of thing we generally expect to hear Jesus say, and yet there they are there, recorded in black and white in Matthew’s Gospel.

This means we shouldn’t move too quickly onto other more comforting Jesus sayings, pretending that Jesus didn’t actually say this. Jesus meant to shock us with these words because he wanted us to stop and wrestle with them in an attempt to find their meaning.

So that is exactly what we will spend the rest of this week doing. In the meantime, take some to read around these words as you ponder their meaning. As these words are part of Jesus’ conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount, you might want to read from the beginning of that Sermon (from Matthew 5).

PRAY AS YOU GO

Gracious God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would fill us all as we wrestle with and ponder your meaning in this particular teaching. May you grow and deepen our faith throughout this week’s journey. Amen.

FOCUS READING
Matthew 7. 21 NRSV

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord , Lord,‘ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Friday 26th June - A little town called Ziklag

DAILY BYTE

David and his band of misfits eventually worked their way out of living in a cave and established new lives for themselves at a small outpost called Ziklag. One day, David and his men returned from the day’s work to find that their wives and children had been stolen away by raiders.

The text tells us: ‘So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.’ And then for David it got even worse for the text goes onto say: ‘David was greatly distressed because his own men were talking about stoning him.’

I can’t imagine a lower point for anyone to be. To have your loved ones kidnapped, and then to hear the men you trust and love discuss killing you. However, in the midst of this grief and fear, this horrible faith-stretching moment, comes a most profoundly beautiful sentence of Scripture, ‘but David found strength in the Lord his God.’

Again we learn from David’s story that not even the very worst of life’s painful moments can take away our choice. Our choice to relentlessly hold onto faith in a loving God with a loving plan who promises that he will relentlessly hold onto us and never let us go!

If you have ever encountered, or find yourself in the middle of a life moment where everything has gone horribly wrong, may these Scriptural truths bring your heart encouragement.

Of course you will grieve and weep, and you may even have a breakdown on Gath’s gates. But perhaps you should also try to explore, even embrace this experience, for although it may be grossly unfair, it is still your only reality, it is the real world and a moment where you can choose to make your faith real.

Because the one thing that never need be taken away from you is your choice. The choice to relentlessly hold onto the God who has promised to relentlessly hold onto you. May you have the strength you need to embrace this new reality, as unfair as it may be, because you are still being embraced by God.

Because God IS loving and God HAS a loving purpose for your life! And there is no experience in earth, heaven or hell that can take that away from you ... unless you choose to let it.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy God, I give thanks to you because you are loving and you do have a loving plan for my life. Help me to make my faith real by embracing the reality of each situation in my life, as tough as it may be to do so. Help me to choose you and to relentlessly hold onto faith in you because I know you are relentlessly holding onto me. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOCUS READING

1 Samuel 30. 1-6 NIV

David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.
When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. David's two wives had been captured—Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.

Thursday 25th June - Lessons from Cave Adullam

DAILY BYTE
When life does go pear-shaped and we land up in a cave called ‘Adullam,’ what happens to us there? What happens to our faith? What particular life lessons can we learn from David cave experience?

What really amazes me is how David embraced the reality of his new situation. Sure he must have wept and lamented, and sure he probably had a nervous break-down on the Gates of Gath, but David eventually took this band of misfit outcasts and losers and gave them new purpose.

He formed a type of ‘Robin Hood’ band with these men where he used his soldiering talent to protect and care for the defenceless. One group of shepherds later described David’s mean as a ‘wall of protection around us at night.’

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a quote from Richard Rohr – how God does not necessarily give us all the answers we require during life’s tough times but will always give meaning. Well, this is a prime example of how that works out. New purpose, new hope and new lives are given to all sorts of down and out people because David made a choice to stay faithful to God even in his cave.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote how he survived life in a Siberian concentration camp for so many years. When he first got there, he carefully studied the people around him in the camp and found that those who were doing well were those who most accepted the reality of their new situation. They had realised that the one thing that couldn’t be taken away from them was their choice of how they would react to life in prison.

Of course they wept and grieved for their old lives and went through bad patches, but ultimately they embraced life as it was. They chose to relentlessly hold onto hope no matter what. They chose to live to the full in the midst of their prison experience rather than waiting for their situations to improve before life could begin again.

One story told about David’s ‘cave years’ illustrates just how relentlessly he chose to hold onto faith in a God whom he knew would relentlessly hold onto him. King Saul had launched yet another man-hunt for him, and while out on this hunt, Saul by chance went into the exact cave where David and his men were hiding ‘to relieve himself.’ Saul had no idea that David and his men were hiding in the back of that cave.

David had an opportunity to kill Saul there and then, to take the easy way out of his misery. However, at the end of the day, David refused to return like for like and hatred with hatred. Although sorely tempted and urged by his men, David rose above that. That’s exactly the kind of choice that brings life and renewed faith, even in the darkest of cave moments.

Although King Saul had taken everything away from David, he couldn’t take away his choice of how he would react. David knew that he could be more, that he should be more, and so his choices reflect that.

They also reflected the man and the king he later became – ‘a man after God’s own heart’ as the Bible described him.

Are there any important life choices you need to make? Choices that will influence whom you will later become?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Loving God, help me to see how important the choices I make are. That how I react to life’s tough moments will shape and define the person I later become. Thank you for David’s example and help me to similarly stay faithful to you always. Amen.

FOCUS READING
1 Samuel 24. 1-7 NIV

After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, "David is in the Desert of En Gedi." So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.
He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. The men said, "This is the day the LORD spoke of when he said to you, 'I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.' " Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, "The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD's anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the LORD." With these words David rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

Wednesday 24th June - When life goes horribly wrong

DAILY BYTE

One by one, all David’s achievements and successes were stripped away. Let’s be clear – not because God stripped them from him, but just because of the ‘general cussedness of life’. Life is difficult and sometimes it all goes horribly wrong, despite our best efforts.

David’s success began to threaten an increasingly jealous King Saul. Saul tried on numerous occasions to kill David, until eventually David was forced to run for his life.

David ran to his mentor, the prophet Samuel. But Saul sent soldiers to find him there, and David had to flee again. Samuel died soon afterwards, which meant David would not see him again, or benefit from his fatherly advice and guidance.

Next David went to his best friend Jonathon. Now Jonathon loved David, but he could not lift a sword against his father, so David ended up on the run once more. Sadly enough, this was also the last time that David would see Jonathon before his untimely and violent death. Finally, King Saul in a rage gave his daughter Michal to be married to another man. This of course meant that David lost out on his wife as well.

Am I depressing you yet?

In a short spell, David lost his job, income and security. Some of you know what that’s like. Then he lost some of the most important relationships in his life, including that of his marriage. Some of you know what that feels like too.

David is so desperate that he runs for refuge to his sworn enemies, the Philistines, who lived in the city of Gath. To try to get them to have pity on him and take him in without killing him, David pretends to be insane. He foams at the mouth. He scribbles and scratches on the city gate.

Perhaps this behaviour is very close to the truth for David, as it represents the underlying storm in his soul. It really would be no surprise if David was close to a nervous breakdown by this stage. Anyway, the Philistines also kick him out and so David ends up living in a cave called Adullam.

From a palace, loved by all, David ends up living in a cave of the doomed. Surrounded no longer by the best of the best in terms of friends and fellow soldiers, now gathered around him are the worst of the worst in terms of life’s outcasts and losers (see focus reading). David would spend approximately the next ten years living like this.

And you know, like with David, nobody ever plans on ending up living in a cave such as Adullam, but there are very few people who don’t end up there at some point or the other. It’s part of the brokenness of our world.

Spend some time reflecting on your own ‘Adullam Cave’ experiences. What have you learnt or how have you grown from these experiences?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, when our lives go miserably pear-shaped, help us to never give up on you and never give up on the belief that you are loving and good. May our moments of suffering deepen our faith and not weaken it. Amen.

FOCUS READING
1 Samuel 21:10-22:2 (NIV)

That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances:
" 'Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands'?"
David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
Achish said to his servants, "Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"
David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father's household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.

Tuesday 23rd June - Life is difficult

DAILY BYTE

Unless our faith seriously impacts our ‘real worlds,’ then it probably won’t amount to much at all.

John Ortberg tells the story of a guy named Charlie Shedd. He was a great speaker and before he had children he used to do this talk called: ‘The Ten Commandments for Raising Perfect Children!’ Then he had a child and changed the title of his talk to ‘Ten Helpful Hints for Parents.’ Then he and his wife had a second child and he changed the talk again, this time to ‘A Few Tentative Suggestions for Fellow Strugglers.’

Then he had a third child and he just quit doing the talk altogether.

Because life is undoubtedly difficult and there is so much that often goes wrong. We may plan as carefully as possible and things still go horribly wrong. Sometimes we think we know the secret to it all, like our friend Charlie Shedd, but life is always a lot harder in practice.

Complications arise, unaccountably something interferes and we land flat on our faces. Because of the weather or Murphy’s Law or just what Eugene Peterson calls ‘the general cussedness of life.’

This is why the question we need to be wrestling with is not how ‘real’ is God, but how ‘real’ is my faith. When everything goes horribly wrong as it so often does, when everything that I seemed so sure of before is thrown into doubt – how does my faith stand up? How do I react?

This is where I want to introduce you to a particular story in the life of David that has much to teach us about the relentless persistence of real faith in the ‘real world.’

When we first meet David, it seems as if he is on a one way ticket up. Everything he touches turns to gold. Talk about your upwardly mobile, but David goes from being a simple shepherd boy from a nondescript family to being the finest captain and leading solder in King Saul’s army in no time at all.

How’s this for a CV? 1. Killed a rampaging, steroid-munching giant named Goliath. 2. Was the best friend of the King’s son – Jonathon. 3. Ended up marrying the King’s daughter – Michal. 4. He was the King’s top soldier and also his favourite musician, the only one able to bring Saul out of his dark, depressive moods.

None of these could exactly be called bad career moves!

It’s no wonder that David soon became a celebrity all over Israel. They loved this guy with people singing songs about how if King Saul had killed thousands of Philistines, well then, David had killed tens of thousands. If Oprah had been around, David would have been on her show twice a year – that’s how popular he was!

But remember – life is difficult and after this David’s life encountered a turn for the worse. We will be looking to learn from this as we look more closely at his experiences tomorrow.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O God, we do know that life at times can be terribly difficult, even cruel. We pray that as we devote ourselves to learning from David’s story over the next few days, you would mould and form us so that we will be able to remain faithful to you even when our lives hit rocky patches. Amen.

FOCUS VERSE
1 Samuel 18. 5-6 (NIV)

Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the people, and Saul's officers as well.
When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. As they danced, they sang:
"Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands."

Week 25 - Mission Project

Ethelbert Children's Home cares for 60 abused, abandoned and neglected children from various backgrounds and cultures. They come to us frightened and hurting, not knowing who to trust or what security is. We gather them in and start the process of healing, helping them to trust again and to feel secure and cared for. Our aim is to nurture them so that one day they may leave here able to cope with society and become worthwhile citizens, capable of contributing to the world around them.

A donation can be sent to:
Ethelbert Children's Home, PO Box 28119, Malvern, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 4055.
www.ethelbert.co.za

Thank you for caring.

Monday 22nd June - Real world faith

DAILY BYTE

So there I was, quite a few years ago now, virtually a brand-new minister, standing at the door of a church and shaking hands after the service. While I was shaking hands, someone said something to me that just stopped me cold. He said: ‘Thanks for the worship service, I really enjoyed it. It’s just such a pity that we have to go back into the real world now.’

Now, there are certain moments in every minister’s life when you want to take a congregation member by the shoulders and shake them until their teeth rattle! I wanted to shake this man and say:
‘But the whole point of faith and worship and everything else we do in church is that it does prepare us for life ‘out there’ and that it does get lived out in the real world! Faith is meaningless unless it dramatically impacts your real world!’

For you see, God IS the world, and God IS all life. There is nothing more relentlessly ‘real world’ than God and his interaction with us. God is a dust-and-dirt God, a born-in-a-stable God, a wrapped-in-frail-flesh God, a weeping-outside-his-friend’s-tomb God.

There is NOTHING more REAL than God!

God has never promised us pie-in-the-sky, maybe the church does sometimes, but Jesus used to say things that people found so tough, so relentlessly real, that they would just walk away from him.

Jesus never promised that faith would be this magic protective bubble around us that life’s difficulties would just bounce off. Jesus never promised that faith in him would necessarily make life easier, but that it might even make life harder in some ways. For example, Jesus warned it might bring us persecution.

Faith is not just for Sunday services, it’s not just for good and happy moments, but faith is meant for those Monday mornings when life goes pear-shaped, and for days when we are swamped by forces beyond our control.

If we never bring our faith into that realm, the realm this gentleman at the church door understood as ‘the real world,’ then quite frankly, our faith won’t last too long and won’t amount to much at all.

So the question I would like you to wrestle at the beginning of this week’s devotions is how ‘real world’ is your faith? How much of an impact on your Monday mornings does your faith make?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy God, help us to never separate, even for a moment, our faith dimension from the rest of our worlds. Help us to see that everything is spiritual, and that unless our faith impacts every area of our lives then we are missing the point in a big way. Amen.

FOCUS READING
Ephesians 1: 18-20 (NIV)

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

Friday 20th June - Moving our fences

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday we reflected on a passage from Isaiah 19, in which Egypt and Assyria – the traditional enemies of Israel – were described alongside Israel as being part of God’s embracing purposes for all the world.

What a challenge to us, especially in the midst of the current xenophobia crisis we’re living through, to rethink the labels and categories we so quickly construct in order to define who others are, and therefore how we should relate to them.

In fact, the truth of the matter is that we use labels and categories to define who we are, too – selfimposed boxes that often limit our capacity to reach out to others whom we think are different from us, or even ‘beneath’ us.

How different from Jesus. He wasn’t interested in human categories and labels. He called a tax collector to be one of his disciples. He got a bad reputation of being a ‘partygoer’ because he was happy to hang out with ‘sinners’, which totally scandalised the superrighteous religious set. Jesus wasn’t fazed. He was much bigger than that. Much bigger than any human category or label. He knew who he was, having God’s own heart, with space enough to accept all.

His example offers us this challenge:
It’s not how we see others that needs to change as much as how we see ourselves. If we define ourselves too narrowly, too rigidly, there will be little space for others who don’t fall within the parameters of that definition. This always impoverishes our lives. But as we push out the boundaries of our own selfunderstanding, we discover in us a new capacity for acceptance which more closely reflects the unconditional acceptance of God.

There is a wellknown story about some soldiers in the First World War who carried one of the slain comrades to a nearby church in a rural part of France. There they asked the priest if he would bury their friend in the church graveyard. The priest asked if the dead man was a baptized member of the Catholic Church. When the soldiers replied that they didn’t know, the priest said that he was very sorry, but in that case he couldn’t allow the man to be buried in that graveyard. And so with heavy hearts the soldiers dug a grave outside the graveyard, buried their fallen comrade, and went on their way.

Some months later they happened to be in that region, and so decided to visit the grave of their friend. But as they looked for his grave outside of the graveyard fence they could find no trace of it. Confused, they approached the priest. He said, “After you left I was greatly troubled that night by my refusal to bury your friend in our graveyard. So the next morning I got up, and with my own hands moved the graveyard fence to include the grave of your friend.”

What fences are you being called to move that will broaden the narrow definition of who you are, and create a spaciousness within you to accept and embrace others? May you know the strength and the grace of God as you do just that, and together may our radical acceptance of others become a source of healing and reconciliation within our nation.


PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord Jesus Christ, there is no barrier bigger than your love, no gulf wider than your mercy, no division greater than your desire to overcome it. You left your throne in heaven to find us, lost as we were in our sin and our shame. And you have declared that no one is beyond the reach of your grace. Help us to take this great truth to heart, and to live it in our interactions with others. And through us, may your work of reconciliation flourish within a world torn apart by division and strife. Amen.


SCRIPTURE READING
Matthew 9:9-13

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

Thursday 19th June - Unconditional love

DAILY BYTE

Many people support the notion of unconditional love and acceptance - as an idea. But when it comes to the actual living of our lives, sadly, our histories reveal a different story.

The most graphic example was, of course, the evil of Apartheid, where prejudice and fear allowed certain groups of people to discriminate against others on the basis of the colour of their skin. The tragedy is that this still continues today. And not just racial discrimination, but discrimination of every kind. On the basis of nationality, sexual orientation, age, gender, marital status, religious beliefs, HIV status, socioeconomic position - the list could go on and on. And the deepseated conviction is that somehow these groups of people do not matter as much to God.

But to this the bible says an emphatic ‘No!’ As soon as we think that we have some preferential claim upon God’s acceptance over any other group of people, then we have misunderstood who God really is.

There is a passage in Isaiah 19 that illustrates this in a dramatic way. It’s often overlooked but is in fact one of the most radical passages in the entire Old Testament. To grasp what’s going on here we need to understand two key convictions that had emerged in the Judaism of this period. The first was that Israel = The Promised Land, Israel = The Chosen People of God, the instrument of God’s blessing in the world. That was a strong part of Israel’s identity.

The second was the growing importance of what was known as cultic centralisation. That is to say that the sacrificial cult, the offering of sacrifices could happen only in one central place, namely Jerusalem.

In this passage from Isaiah 19, both of these convictions are kicked on their head. A prophecy is given about Egypt and Assyria, which were the traditional enemies of Israel. But they are described, together with Israel, as nations where the worship of Yahweh will take place, and as instruments of God’s blessing on the earth. “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

It was a prophecy that would have shaken the very foundations of Israel’s prejudice and her justifications for discrimination. It would have been like George W Bush hearing God say, “Blessed be Iran, my champion of democracy, and North Korea, my agent of peace, and America, my servant of reconciliation.”

But if we are to affirm that God is a God of unconditional love, whose arms of acceptance are flung wide open to embrace all, then we have to acknowledge that our attempts to place limits on God’s love are a blasphemous distortion of who God really is. Of course, if we really think about it, we will recognise that this is truly good news, because it means that no matter what we have done or where we have been, we are still loved and cherished by God.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Thank you Lord that your unconditional love is precisely that – unconditional. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING
Isaiah 19:19-25

In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the LORD at its border. It will be a sign and witness to the LORD Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them.

So the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the LORD. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the LORD and keep them. The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.

In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance."

Wednesday 18th June - From Lament to Hope

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday we started looking at the xenophobia crisis that is happening in our country. It is a painful thing to face up to the brutality, inhumanity and callous indifference that has been so evident in this situation. The sense of anguish and shame that this generates is real, and cannot be swept under the carpet. Nor should it be!

The clear witness of Israel’s faith is that in the face of crises and situations like this one, the outpouring of honest lament to God opens us up to something genuinely transformative. If you study the laments in the book of Psalms you will see over and over and over again a remarkable pattern repeating itself:

The lament usually starts with the psalmist addressing God. This small detail is significant. Who we call upon in times of trouble makes all the difference!

Next, the psalmist would describe the trouble or distress, or voice his/her complaint. There is nothing sugarcoated about what is expressed, just the brutal honesty of disillusionment, fear, betrayal and bitter disappointment. Often this brutal honesty is directed towards God. Whether this is justified, or fair, or even theologically accurate is besides the point. These are the anguished outpourings of human hearts struggling to make sense of life and the incomprehensible injustice that sometimes marks it so cruelly. And the obvious point that is underscored by the prolific presence of such laments in the bible, is that God welcomes this kind of honesty.

Many people wonder if this is in fact OK, because they make the mistake of thinking that that’s all there is to a lament – ranting and raging against God. But again and again the psalms of lament reveal something very different. For having described the trouble or distress, most commonly the lament then moves to a petition for God’s response, followed by a profession of trust and confidence in God’s goodness, and finally a promise to praise God.

Can you see the pattern? Something transformative happens when we bring our grief and the groanings of our hearts to God. Because the very act of crying out to God reminds us of who God really is, and can allow us to see our troubles in the wider light of who God is and what God is capable of doing.

I have seen this in this current xenophobia crisis. There is a group of about 40 people (men, women and children) from Burundi and the DRC who are being accommodated at our church. Every day at noon, we have a time of devotion and prayer. And every day there is this gutwrenching outpouring of anguish and pain as these precious people contemplate a precarious and uncertain future. And yet, if you listen carefully, there is an unmistakable note of hope, against all the odds, that can be heard in the choruses of petition and praise that they sing to God.

What a witness to us all, in whatever crises we may find ourselves. And what a powerful reminder of the transforming power of God that can be discovered in the dark places of life, not by denying the darkness but by bringing it into the glorious light of God.

PRAY AS YOU GO

All praise be to you O Lord, for your great mercy and compassion in drawing us to yourself. Thank you that before we can beat our fists against your chest, we must first enter the circle of your loving embrace. Thank you that your grace is truly sufficient for us and for our bruised and bleeding world. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 31:1, 10-11, 14, 21, 24

In you O Lord I seek refuge...

My life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of misery, and my bones waste away.
I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbours...

But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me...
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.

Tuesday 17th June - Lamenting Xenophobia

DAILY BYTE

The xenophobia motivated incidents of hostility and aggression that have been taking place in our country over the past month or so have shaken us all to the core. What started as an isolated incident in the township of Alexandria quickly took on a life of its own, repeating itself in Alexandria, then spilling over into Diepsloot, and other townships around Gauteng. And then, virtually overnight, it spread to many other urban centres around the country.

The consequences have been catastrophic. Many would have seen the gruesome images of the burnt body of Ernesto Nhamwavane, a 22 year old Mozambiquan man who lost his life at the hands of a crazed mob. Dozens more have lost their lives also. But the loss of life has not been limited just to the literal killings of the 65 people who have died. In countless other ways death has been stalking our land: Tens of thousands of foreigners have fled from their homes, their communities, their livelihoods. Families have been uprooted and separated. Children have been displaced from their schools. And through it all there has been this insidious fear, deepseated suspicion and malignant mistrust that has crushed the hopes and prospects of those who had looked to this country as a place of refuge and sanctuary.

For many of us who are South Africans this has been a source of great sorrow and shame. And make no mistake, the implications of this for our nation will be longlasting. The contours of the South African sociopolitical landscape have been changed, maybe forever, and for a very long time the shame of what has happened in these last weeks will be a blight on our national psyche, whether we consciously acknowledge it or not.

Now many people will find this kind of frank reflection disturbing, or at the very least annoying. “Stop being negative,” they may say. But that is missing the point. The compelling witness of biblical faith is that the only way to deal decisively with the appalling horrors and crushing disappointments of life is not by pretending that they did not really happen, or are really not so bad. But rather, through the courage of honest confrontation and heartfelt lament, in which the anguish and agonies of life are poured out to God, is there hope for lasting resolution.

In fact, of all the psalms in the bible, the most frequently occurring is the lament, which was expressed both by individuals and collectively as a nation. In the experience of Israel’s faith, it was only when the pained and agonizing questions, confusions and contradictions of life were given voice before God, that they discovered their heartache, despair and disillusionment being gathered into the broader perspective of God’s loving and lifegiving purposes for the world. And hope was restored, and peace was experienced when before there was no peace.

As we reflect upon what has happened to us as a nation in recent weeks in this xenophobia crisis, maybe it’s high time for us, as a nation, to voice our lament to God – acknowledging our complicity in this evil, expressing our sorrow and shame, and naming the sense of despair we feel in the face of this daunting challenge. As we do we can be assured of this, God hears the cries of his people and is not unmoved. And through the honest outpourings of our hearts, God’s grace can be at work, bringing about restoration and the hope of new life.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O Lord, help us to turn to you, to look to you, to trust in you as the God who saves. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 22:1-5

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

Monday 16th June - Youth Day

DAILY BYTE

Today is a public holiday as we celebrate, as a nation, Youth Day. It’s a day when we specifically remember the tragic events in Soweto 32 years ago, when schoolchildren took up the struggle for freedom in this country in a whole new way. We should be grateful for the sacrifice that those young people made, and for their contribution to bringing down an evil and oppressive political system.

And yet, our remembrance today should be a sobering reminder to us all of the tragedy of the innocence of youth being lost too soon – of children having to grow up before their time. The carefreeness of childhood – being able to play, and learn, and laugh, and run, and splash through mud puddles without any concern for clothes getting dirty, and fall asleep at night in a warm bed with a full tummy, feeling safe and secure and loved – this is what childhood should be all about. Is this too much to ask?

Sadly, we know we live in a world where millions of children are trapped in the relentless grind of abject poverty, countless others endure abuse and assault as a daily reality, and alarmingly large numbers of children are being orphaned by AIDS.

For those of us who are adults, and especially parents, today is an opportunity to reflect on the world we are bequeathing to our children, not just as their future inheritance, but as a present reality that is influencing now who they will be for the rest of their lives. As we stop our usual work and responsibilities on this public holiday, we would be wise to reflect on what is truly important and what our children really need. To ask ourselves what it will take to be the kind of adults, parents, relatives and friends that all the children among us deserve.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Gracious God, you are our loving heavenly parent. Like a strong and compassionate Father you love us, believe in us, provide for us and protect us. Like a strong and compassionate Mother you love us, nurture us, care for us and console us. Truly, we are all beloved children in your sight, and we thank you. Help us today to recognise the further part that we can play in offering greater love, care and protection to the little ones who have a special place in your heart – namely the children in our midst. Thank you for the gift of young people, for the joys and the holy demands their presence brings into our lives. Bless all young people today, especially those who suffer in any way. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 103:13

“As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.”

Friday 13th June - When it feels as if God has let you down

DAILY BYTE

Richard Rohr has a phrase that beautifully sums up this week’s devotions:
God does not always give us the answers we are looking for in life, but what he will always give is an abundance of meaning.

This is what Elijah’s story reminds us of so vividly – that we may not always have answers, that life can be unfair at times, but God will ALWAYS press divine meaning into our lives.

If we learn to listen intently, if we trust our feeling less and God more, we will find peace in this too. That even in our toughest driest desert experiences, our eyes can be opened to find trees of grace and messengers of divine love. That even in our darkest, most abandoned ‘life caves,’ our ears will go beyond loud noises and special effects to hear whispers of hope.

That even if God is silent, there is STILL presence.

This really is the relentless witness of all Scripture. Through many diverse stories and characters who all face their tough and empty moments, to the Psalms where at least a third of them are angry and questioning, the one unified voice coming through is ‘don’t fear and don’t give up because God is always with you.’

This message culminates in Jesus who was called ‘Immanuel’ which means ‘God with us.’ In today’s focus reading, where Jesus is speaking to his disciples about enduring persecutions and facing tough times, he assures them that although these bad things will happen to good people (like them); it will not stop God from being there.

Jesus reminds them that not even the tiniest sparrow falls from the sky, ‘apart from the Father’ or without God being there. Not even the tiniest little animal in the most remote corner of the earth will pass away without God being present. What an amazing thought!

Like Elijah, sometimes we struggle to see or perceive that. But the lesson we learn from Elijah’s caving experiences is that even if we feel completely alone and utterly let down – well, those are only feelings because God will always be with you.

Always.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Gracious God, not even the tiniest sparrow falls from the sky without you being there. So how much more are we worth to you and how much more will you ensure that you are with us through every moment of every day. Thank you for that incredible message of hope, and may we determinedly cling to it even when our feelings tell us otherwise. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Matthew 10: 29-31 ( NRSV)

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Thursday 12th June - When it feels as if God has let you down

DAILY BYTE

Elijah’s cave was both literal and spiritual in that it represented something of the darkness and loneliness of feeling that God had let him down.

But God finds Elijah ... even in this cave. ‘So what are you doing here Elijah?’

This question eventually pierces through his self absorbed misery. In response, Elijah launches into the same theme that he had been repeating for weeks which went something like this:
‘I have been very zealous and faithful for you God; I have done so much good! How can you let this happen to me? Evil just seems so powerful. I don’t deserve this and life is just unfair.’

If those words sound at all familiar, it is probably because you might have said a version of them yourself once or twice. God tells Elijah to go stand by the entrance of the cave because his presence is about to pass by. And then this powerful wind, a great earthquake and a mighty fire all roar by BUT God is not in any of those things.

This must have been strange for Elijah, because last time he looked God WAS in those types of things. Remember his success on Mount Carmel where God poured fire upon his sacrifice.

Is God found only in big events? In successful moments?

Truth be told, isn’t that how we all think sometimes? We think (and feel) that God is there for us when our lives go well, and the chips fall in our favour. We feel divinely blessed by God if we get that promotion, or when it all works out for us?

Don’t we tell ourselves that God is near if our prayers are answered?

But that is only a small part of a much greater truth because God is always, always there. He is also there in life’s small events – in our failures, tears and poverty, and when our prayers DON’T seem answered. Falling down doesn’t mean that God has left us, it just means that life can be both tough and unfair and that bad things happen to good people.

Even God on earth experienced a cross after all. Jesus came to earth to show us how to love and died violently as a result. You cannot get more grossly unfair than that. Jesus’ prayer to ‘take this cup of suffering from me’ was answered, but in the negative.

Elijah has this to learn and he did so when there came a ‘sound of sheer silence.’ If you read the text carefully you will notice that he was still in his cave at this point. Elijah had disobeyed God’s command to go wait outside, so he hardly noticed the big and noisy events roaring by.

But at the sound of sheer silence Elijah understands. He gets it. He jumps up and runs out the cave. Elijah covers his head because he realises he is now in God’s presence – in a place of holy recognition and realisation - and this is what he realised:

That God is always there, even if our prayers and pleas receive only silence as an answer. That even if we have failed miserably, if we have run away from our responsibilities and if we have given up on God ... He will never give up on us!

How has that been true for you lately?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord we sometimes have a tendency to affirm your presence only in ‘the big’ – our moments of success. Help us to find you in our moments of failure and weakness and pain. Help us to know that even if our prayers seemingly bounce back to us or disappear into thin air that you are still there. Amen.

FOCUS READING

1 Kings 19. 9b-13 NIV

And the word of the LORD came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."
The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Wednesday 11th June - When it feels as if God has let you down

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we left Elijah down in the dumps and running for his life. He fled into the desert where he found a tree under which he huddled and prayed a rather mournfully depressed prayer. However, when he prayed he seemed to do so into silence – thin air. This was the same man who earlier prayed for fire to come down from heaven and it did, and yet here his prayers seem pointless and empty.

So Elijah falls asleep. He is then woken by an angel and fed, and then sent onto a mountain where he finds a cave to hide in. Depressed. Alone. Angry. Bitter. Perhaps you have been through a similar life moment and can easily relate? Where once everything seemed so clear and faith was easy, now God seems distant and your heart is filled with questions.

If I had to sum up in one sentence what we can learn from Elijah’s story so far it would be in the following way:
It is clear that in life bad things happen to good people (like Elijah), but what we also learn is that doesn’t stop God from being good.

What the Bible reminds us is that when we feel alone and abandoned by God, it is just that - a feeling. A powerful feeling to be sure, but a feeling nonetheless because God is always there! Always!

Whether we feel him or perceive him, he IS there.

For instance, God was there for Elijah. It’s just that in the misery of his selfpity he failed to see it. For example, the tree Elijah lay under was just handy shade he hardly noticed. But a tree in the desert?! After 3 years of drought? Well, that’s a miracle.

The official name of the tree is ‘rotem’, and it has this delicate white flower with a maroon centre and can commonly be found along beds of driedup streams. Its beauty always stands out from the surrounding desiccation, but Elijah did not notice this moment of grace because he was too wrapped up in his own misery.

And what about the angel? The Hebrew word for this angel is ‘mal’ak’, which basically means messenger, and is in fact the identical term used for the messenger that Jezebel used to threaten Elijah! Jezebel sends a messenger of death, but God sends one of life. However, the point is that here is a messenger of God’s presence that Elijah again did not notice. He ate without seeing and was nourished without realising.

Know this then. Even in our darkest, most lonely moments and despite how isolated and abandoned we feel ... God IS ALWAYS there.

Have you looked for evidence of God’s presence in your life today? Or have you been too wrapped up in self or in immediate concerns to notice?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, help us to learn to see all those moments of grace that we so often take for granted. Help us to learn that our feelings of abandonment are just that – feelings – and they don’t reflect the truth, for the consistent Biblical promise is that you will always be with us. Help us to hold onto that with all our strength. In Christ name we pray. Amen.

FOCUS READING

1 Kings 19. 3-6 (NIV)

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

Tuesday 10th June - When it feels as if God has let you down

DAILY BYTE

It all started because the King of Israel – Ahab – married badly. Really badly! He married a woman named Jezebel who turned much of Israel away from God and over to Baal worship.

Elijah battled heroically against this. He struggled to turn the people back to God and told the first couple of Israel that the country would see no rain until this adulterous affair with Baal was cut short. So, over the course of 3 years, the land endured constant drought, which of course infuriated Ahab and Jezebel.

Eventually it was decided that there should be a big ‘faith face off’ with Elijah in one corner and all the prophets of Baal in the other. Each made a sacrifice on Mount Carmel, and whichever god lit this sacrifice would prove themselves as the real God of Israel!

The prophets of Baal went first. All day long they danced and prayed and sang around their sacrifice. All the while, Elijah had a lot of fun at their expense! He was laughing and teasing them, saying things like: ‘Perhaps Baal can’t hear you because he’s left the room to go to the bathroom, or maybe he’s answered his phone or something like that.’ (Ok, I made the part about the phone up!)

Finally at the end of the day Elijah prays and fires comes down from heaven to light his sacrifice. God wins! Elijah wins! The people were so angry at the prophets of Baal for duping them that they exterminated them on the spot. (Obviously life was a lot tougher for priests in those days – please don’t get any ideas concerning your resident minister). Then Elijah prayed for rain and it came – this was his finest hour, he should have been at the top of the world.

Except then he received a messenger from Jezebel – ‘Elijah because of what you have done I am going to take you out. Elijah you are a dead man!’

And this is where Israel’s hero story takes its usual unique turn. What does Elijah do in response? Does he thumb his nose at Jezebel? Does he say, ‘Go ahead, make my day you punk?’ Does his jut out his jaw and face the hordes of enemies that Jezebel throws at him? After all, that is what we expect our heroes to do.

No. Elijah wilts. He staggers. He turns pale and runs for his life.

We can only guess why but perhaps Elijah felt really let down by God at this point. After all his long years of struggle against Ahab and Jezebel, at a stage where he felt he had finally won, Elijah found that his battle was not yet over. Maybe he felt this was unfair and God owed him more. Perhaps the fear and the stress of this threat against his life totally overwhelmed him and drove out all sense of God’s presence from his life.

From this point on, although he hadn’t yet arrived in his literal cave, Elijah was already in a spiritual one. He was lost in the dark and stumbling about, feeling totally abandoned and alone.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O God, we commit every dark and lonely moment we have ever endured to you. Comfort us and protect us when we walk through those valleys and enter those caves. Even in the severest of temptations and doubts, may we stay faithful to you. Amen.

FOCUS VERSE

1 Kings 19. 1-2 (NIV)

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."

Monday 9th June - When it feels as if God has let you down

DAILY BYTE

Throughout the ages almost every culture has had their hero stories. Our own culture is full of them from James Bond to Rocky Balboa to Neo from the Matrix. Now these heroes’s may have their weaknesses such as Achilles’ heel, Beowulf’s vanity and Church Norris’ hairstyle, but this never prevented them from standing bravely against great odds until the bitter end.

This is why literature experts agree that Israel is fairly unique amongst cultures in that they just did not have this type of hero story. Of course they had stories about people who were quite heroic in the faith, but it was always made fundamentally clear that apart from God, these heroes were nothing.

Look at this brief list: Abraham was a liar, Jacob a thief, Moses had a murderous temper and David was an adulterer. Yes, they achieved wonderful things against great odds but the Bible makes it clear that their own brilliance or bravery had NOTHING to do with it. On the contrary these achievements were often accomplished despite them.

Perhaps nowhere is this lack of the heroic seen more clearly than in the story of Elijah. Elijah was another in a long list of very flawed, but very real Biblical characters. Really, this is the genius of these stories because we can so easily relate to their experiences and weaknesses and therefore begin to appreciate how God’s grace covers over human failings. We begin to suspect that if God is willing to use even them, then perhaps he might be willing to work with us as well.

This week we will be travelling with Elijah through one of his darkest times. In this particular story Elijah lands up in a cave - a cave which although real, was also symbolic in many ways. It represented the darkness of this period of his life, because he felt so betrayed and abandoned by God.

However, while this story makes it clear that Elijah feels spiritually dry and isolated; it also affirms the presence of God in some quite remarkable ways.
Start by reading through the whole story (see focus reading). Jot down any thoughts or feelings that an initial reading of this story brings to you.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Gracious God, thank you for the gift of the Bible which is a testimony like no other in this world. Thank you for the many inspired stories which are always so very real to us. Thank you for its overwhelming message that you can use us even with all our flaws and imperfections. We ask that through this week you would use the particular story of Elijah to open our minds and hearts to you in new ways. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Read 1 Kings 18 & 19

Monday 2 June 2008

DAILY BYTE

This week our devotions continue to follow the story of David and his remarkable journey from a humble shepherd boy to becoming king. Last week we looked at aspects of David’s story prior to him taking the throne. Now we skip forward in the story. King Saul has fallen on his sword in battle with the Philistines (1 Sam 31) and David has been anointed king.

This part of the story can get a little tricky, and can be difficult to understand. So today we’ll have a brief history lesson to help get things straight in our heads before we proceed with the rest of the devotions this week.

It’s important to understand that at this point in the biblical story there were two distinct tribal groupings in the land. In the south were the tribes of Judah, in the north were the tribes of Israel. These two tribal groupings shared much in common in terms of their faith and family heritage. But there were also significant political fault lines between them. (In later years, after the reign of King Solomon, Israel and Judah would divide into two distinct kingdoms, each having its own king and its own capital.)

David was initially anointed as king over Judah (2 Sam 2) and was based in Hebron. It was only seven years later that he was anointed king over Israel (2 Sam 5) as well, effectively uniting these two tribal groupings into one united kingdom. In seeking to consolidate his power and further meld the kingdom into one, David made a shrewd political move. He seized the Jebusite city of Jerusalem and made it his capital.

There were a few compelling reasons for his choice – Jerusalem was centrally located between the two regions and was in neutral territory that belonged to none of the tribes. Jerusalem therefore represented an excellent compromise for a capital that was acceptable to the tribes of both the north and the south. (There were also other strategic military reasons for capturing Jerusalem, but we cannot get into that here.)

David’s next act of consolidation was equally significant. He transferred the Ark of the Covenant (which contained the two tablets of the Ten Commandments) from Kiriath-Jearim, where it had lain neglected for more than a generation, to Jerusalem, his new capital. The Ark represented a special connection to God and the covenant God had made with the Israelites at Sinai many generations before. It was a powerful symbol of rich religious significance to all of the tribes.

The biblical historian John Bright writes, “It was David’s aim to make Jerusalem the religious as well as the political capital of the realm. Through the Ark he sought to link the newly created state to Israel’s ancient order as its legitimate successor, and to advertise the state as the patron and protector of the sacral institutions of the past. David showed himself far wiser than Saul. Where Saul had neglected the Ark and driven its priesthood from him, David established both the Ark and priesthood in the official national shrine. It was a masterstroke. It must have done more to bind the feelings of the tribes to Jerusalem than we can possibly imagine.”

In case you’re wondering what on earth all this has to do with your life today, over the next couple of days we will explore some of the faith connections arising out of this political history, as we look at how God enters the picture of David’s kingship.

PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious God, thank you that in the very down-to-earth processes of political history, your hand can be discerned to be at work. Thank you that this is true not just of the ancient Israelites, but is true of our lives as well. Help us, in the everyday things that happen to discern your presence and influence, as you use the events of our existence to shape your unfolding purposes for our lives. Amen

FOCUS SCRIPTURE
2 Samuel 5:4-5
David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty three years.

Tuesday 3 June 2008

DAILY BYTE
Yesterday we looked at some of the history around David becoming king of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah, his establishment of Jerusalem as his new capital and his decision to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem to consolidate its place as the religious capital of the realm.

The event of bringing the Ark to Jerusalem was a spectacular affair. It was a grand procession involving 30 000 troops and a massive marching band. This promised to be a public relations coup that David’s “publicity agents” were hoping to get maximum mileage out of. But then, suddenly, things departed from the script as David’s carefully laid plans were disrupted by the unexpected, uncontrollable power of God.

We read that Uzzah, one of the men guiding the cart on which the Ark was being transported, reached out and touched the Ark when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled. And just like that, Zap, Uzzah fell down dead.

This is a tough episode for us to make sense of as it rails against our modern sensibilities of what is fair and just. But Uzzah’s shocking death is a vivid reminder to us of the power and holiness of God who was at work in David’s life but was way beyond David’s manipulation and control.

This is a reminder that we all need, as the increasing tendency today is for people to view God as some kind of cosmic Father Christmas whose primary purpose is to satisfy our desires, or a celestial cheerleader who exists to prop up our sense of self worth and make us all happy.

Consider these two insightful quotes:
“Reverence and awe have often been replaced by a yawn of familiarity. The consuming fire has been domesticated into a candle flame, adding a bit of religious atmosphere, perhaps, but no heat, no blinding light, no power for purification.” (Donald McCullough)

“Most people see God as a benign deity who does little more than ‘bless’ people – a spiritual butler who waits to meet our needs. Most people want a deity who exists to serve our purposes rather than the one who calls us out of ourselves to serve a divine purpose in the world…. But the Almighty God is not primarily here to serve our needs, but to claim us as a part of the fulfillment of God’s redeeming purpose in human experience…. The God David met at the Ark is not safe, but the God whose holiness struck Uzzah to the ground is very good; good enough to give us just a touch of bone-shaking reverence for the power of God, breathless wonder at the mystery of God, and a soul-cleansing awareness of the holiness of God.” (Jim Harnish)

When last did you bow down in reverence before God and declare that God is holy?

PRAY AS YOU GO
Most Holy God, your ways are beyond our ways. You move and act with complete freedom, unconstrained by the limitations we try to impose upon you. Remind us constantly of you who are, a God who cannot be manipulated or controlled. Surprise us with your majesty, dazzle us with your beauty, that we might kneel in humility and reverence before you and declare that you are Holy. Amen

FOCUS SCRIPTURE
2 Samuel 6:1-7
David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all. He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

DAILY BYTE
In 2 Samuel 7:1 we read that David was well settled in his kingship, well settled in his royal palace, and well settled in the land. His former struggle for the throne with the house of Saul is over, his struggle in establishing Jerusalem as his capital is over, and his struggle with his enemies around him is, for the time being, over. We would say that David’s star had risen, he was flying high, he was at the top of his game.

And so his thoughts turn to the Ark of the LORD, and the concern that there was no formal structure to house it, just a tent. It seemed to David that in the midst of all the signs of his success, there should be something more substantial for God, something more dignified, more fitting, a proper temple that would match up to the standards David had set for his own royal palace.

On the face of it, it appears as if David’s plan came from a noble desire to honour God. But God’s response was quite clear – He didn’t want a temple. For two reasons. Firstly, it’s the height of human arrogance to think that any man-made structure could contain the infinite God.

Jim Harnish writes, “The Almighty God cannot be confined, pinned down, or boxed by human efforts. The God we meet in the Bible is constantly on the move. This is the God whose very nature is freedom and who is always doing some new thing. Years later, when God finally gave a building permit for a temple and the project first proposed by David was completed by his son, King Solomon was wise enough to pray, ‘The highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!’ (1 Kings 8:27).”

Secondly, it is not external structures that indicate our religious devotion, but rather the inner disposition of our hearts. Authentic spirituality begins with the commitment to look at life from the inside out. This is what God is interested in – the space we create within us for the Spirit of God to be at work within the deep, inner core of our being to accomplish God’s purpose for our lives.

The word of re-assurance that came to David is a word that God speaks to us too: “I have been with you wherever you have gone…. And I will prepare a place for my people…so that they can have a home” (2 Sam 7:9-10).


PRAY AS YOU GO
O Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Remind us of who you are. Remind us that our lives depend upon you and not the other way around. Help us to make more space for you in our lives, that you might come and take up residency within us, and move us into the wide-open expanse of your loving purposes for all the world. Amen


FOCUS SCRIPTURE
2 Samuel 7:1-2, 4-10
After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent."

That night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying: "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" '

"Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the great ones of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.”

Thursday 5 June 2008

DAILY BYTE
The story of David and Bathsheba is not just a story about sex! It’s also a story about the tragic consequences that arise when self-destructive desires are indulged, when power is abused, when people (and especially women) are objectified, and when wrongdoing is covered over. It’s a story that reveals how small steps down the path of selfish behaviour can quickly lead to major consequences that can scar our lives forever.

For David it all began one sleepless night when he happened to see a beautiful woman bathing, and a deep sexual desire was aroused within him. If it had ended there, the shattering and devastation of many lives would have been avoided. But sadly, David allowed his desire to foment within him, and before he knows it he’s heading straight down the slippery slope into the abyss of immorality.

There’s an old country proverb that says that it’s one thing for the birds of temptation to fly over your head, but it’s another thing to let them build a nest in your hair. When tempting thoughts are entertained in our minds and nurtured in our hearts, they can grow until suddenly they acquire a driving force and power of their own. This is what happened to David.

Having seen Bathsheba’s beauty and wanting to have her, David abuses his kingly power in the worst possible way by having Bathsheba brought to him, and he sleeps with her. The next thing David hears is that Bathsheba is pregnant. Suddenly, one night of selfish sexual passion has become very complicated. Threatened with the possibility of his predatory sexual behaviour being exposed, David makes plans to cover his tracks. He tries to get Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to sleep with her so that his paternity would be concealed, but those plans backfire. Eventually, the easiest solution for the king is to arrange for Uriah to be killed in battle. As the story is recorded in the bible, David has moved from being an insomniac to a murderer, responsible for devastating the life of an entire family.

How exactly does this happen? Well, the interesting thing about this chapter in the Bible is that God is never mentioned at all. The only reference to God in the whole of 2 Samuel 11 is in the very last verse when we read that “the thing David had done displeased the LORD.”

Jim Harnish writes, “The story becomes our story when we realize that it is ultimately about the apparent absence of God as a living, active, controlling presence in human life. David’s actions uncover the depths to which we can fall when we become so confident in our own powers that we no longer live out of a soul-centering experience of the presence of the living God.”

We may not have kingly power like David to take whatever we want, but there is the capacity within all of us, like David, to be lured down devastating paths of chaos and mayhem by our base desires, if we are not consistently deferring to God as the organizing centre of our experience.

David’s story is a warning to us all of what we are capable of, and it’s an encouragement to us to persevere in the daily spiritual discipline of keeping God at the front and centre of our lives.

PRAY-AS-YOU-GO
Gracious God, without you at the centre of my life I can so easily go astray, seduced by tempting sights and situations that seem so exciting but end up delivering heartache and disaster. Help me to keep trusting you and your ways as the organizing centre of my life. Amen.


FOCUS SCRIPTURE
2 Samuel 11:2-5
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."

Friday 6 June 2008

DAILY BYTE

Following his debacle with Bathsheba which ended up with a man’s blood on his hands, David came to learn a painful but necessary lesson – God has written cause and effect into the life of the universe. In other words, if we choose to live life according to our own agenda, if we choose to go our own way and break God’s laws, the effects ripple through our lives and the lives of others, causing all kinds of heartache and pain.

Like all of us, David wanted to avoid the consequences of his selfish choices. Fortunately for David, there was a courageous and wise prophet in the land by the name of Nathan. He knew that a straight forward accusation would be met with big-time royal defensiveness. So he told a story about a rich man who abused his power and privilege at the expense of a poor man. David’s sense of moral outrage was aroused. And then came the telling blow as Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Sam 12).

It’s always easier to see sin and shortcomings in other people’s lives. It’s not so easy to see these things in our own. But painful though it may be, what a gift it is when we are helped to see the truth of our selfish choices and the consequences that they trigger in ours and others’ lives.

It’s a gift because while the consequences of our selfish choices cannot be avoided, by God’s grace they can be redeemed. What this means is that even the mess we make of our lives can somehow be used by God to bring about God’s purpose for us, even if it means that God’s purpose must be worked out in the dysfunctional network of bruised and broken lives that are the product of our arrogant attempts to live without God.

Jim Harnish writes, “Although we are bound together in a tangled web of human relationships, we are not prisoners of fate within that web. We are influenced by our past, but we are not bound by it. Although we stand before the justice of God being worked out in human history, we can also receive the gifts of God’s unexpected mercy…. For God’s grace is not bounded by the limitations of human cause and effect.”

In the end, David learned his lesson. It made him a humbler person, better able to recognize that his own sense of self-sufficiency was just an illusion, and that he was wholly dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. He continued to live with the toxic effects of his actions for years to come with all kinds of dysfunctional dynamics in his family. And yet, through it all God’s steadfast love was known and the house of David continued to be a part of God’s liberating activity for the whole world.

This is the hope and encouragement we can take from David’s story for our own lives. God is not finished with us. No matter what we have done, a new chapter of grace in our lives waits to be written.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. According to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a pure heart O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Amen (Psalm 51:1 3,10)

FOCUS SCRIPTURE

Psalm 25:4 11, 15 (The Message)

A psalm of David

Show me how you work, God;
School me in your ways.
Take me by the hand;
Lead me down the path of truth.

Forget that I sowed wild oats;
Mark me with your sign of love.
Plan only the best for me, God!
God is fair and just;
He corrects the misdirected,
Sends them in the right direction.
He gives the rejects his hand,
And leads them step by step.

From now on every road you travel
Will take you to God.
Follow the Covenant signs;
Read the charted directions.
Keep up your reputation, God;
Forgive my bad life;
It's been a very bad life.

But if I keep my eyes on God,
I won't trip over my own feet.