Isaiah 40
You know, there are some days on this blog when it seems like I’m grasping at straws to find something, anything in the chapter to write about. I particularly remember feeling that way during the ten genealogy chapters of 1 Chronicles! Today, I had the opposite problem. I think I could have written 15 different blogs from things in Isaiah 40. How come he had to cram all the great stuff in the same chapter?
Ecclesiastes 12
It’s interesting, isn’t it? Solomon traveled the world, tasted every delight, sampled every pleasure, and denied himself nothing. And at the end of it all, he was left to conclude that all was empty and meaningless, except for this: “Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for.” (vs 13)
Ecclesiastes 11
How, then, shall we live? Solomon has spent a whole lot of time despairing about the condition of this world—how many things are empty and meaningless and random! He says we don’t have control over our lives, and much of what we do goes either unnoticed or unrewarded. So, we must come to this question: How, then, shall we live?
Psalm 128
I’m continually amazed at the “math” of heaven. It runs so contrary to the math we learn in school. For instance, we all know what 1+1 is, right? It’s the first math problem we ever learn: 1+1=2. But not so with God.
At the outset, when God brings 1 man and 1 woman together, we end up with 1 flesh. 1+1=1. By the time this “1 flesh” is done having a family, the equation might be 1+1=5 or (in the extreme case of a family like the Duggars) 1+1=20! I have to chuckle when I think that God would fail a first-grade math quiz.
Psalm 123
Again in this psalm, we are lifting our eyes. But this time, we aren’t stopping at the mountains: “I lift up my eyes to you, to you who sit enthroned in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.” (vs 1-2)
Psalm 66
What else is to be concluded from this psalm? After all, I’m sure you read this section: “Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” (vs 8-12)
Psalm 65
There is a lovely story my dad used to tell about a little boy named Johnny. One day, Johnny and his grandmother went to the grocery store. After they were done with their shopping and had paid for their items, they were getting ready to leave. The grocer behind the counter scooped up a bit of candy, put it into a sack, and handed it to Johnny. Delighted, Johnny grabbed the bag, immediately turned around and headed for the door. Johnny’s grandmother was mortified and quickly reprimanded Johnny: “What do you say, young man?!” Johnny stopped, turned around with a smile, held out his hand and said, “More, please.”
Psalm 47
In this psalm, David says, “He chooses our inheritance for us.” (vs 4) When I read this, I remembered how, after the birth of our first child, my husband and I suddenly realized we didn’t have a will and that we needed to get one put together. Of course, we wanted to make sure that if something happened to us and we weren’t around, our children would be taken care of (without too much red tape!).
Psalm 36
I recently read a quote (and I will have to apologize because I don’t remember who said it) that went something like this: God gives the world everything it needs. He just doesn’t distribute it. That’s up to us.
What do you think? Do you agree? At the risk of being misunderstood (which I hope I will not be), I have to say that I don’t. For this would either mean that God is incapable of providing for the needs of His creatures or that He prefers to let us direct and control His generosity. I don’t believe either is true.
Psalm 23
Well, what do you say about the most famous chapter in the Bible? Both you and I have read it or heard it read probably hundreds of times. It’s certainly been recited at nearly every funeral I’ve ever been to. I suppose that’s because it is a psalm of utter confidence and contentment. David knows that his God will take care of him. Period.
Take a look at how the first verse reads in a number of different translations:
The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. (NLT)
The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. (CEB)
You, Lord, are my shepherd. I will never be in need. (CEV)
God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. (MSG)
The Lord is my shepherd. I am never in need. (GW)
Job 31
At the beginning of the book of Job, God called Job "blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8) In this chapter, we finally get a description from Job about what that life looked like. Job defends his conduct, his way of life, and—although he doesn’t know that God has called it "blameless and upright"—he is sure that he is not guilty of any secret sin.
Esther 5
Perhaps the theme of the 1965 hit by the Rolling Stones is apropos to this chapter—I can’t get no satisfaction. Poor Haman. That was his problem. It seems that no matter how "good" things got for him, it wasn’t enough: "Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. 'And that’s not all,' Haman added. 'I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow. But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.'" (vs 10-13)
Nehemiah 12
When all the people came together to dedicate the temple, it was a day of great pomp and celebration. There was feasting and music, with dozens of instruments and two huge choirs. Nehemiah says the "sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away." (vs 43) When these Israelites threw a party, they apparently made sure everyone knew about it!
2 Chronicles 25
Amaziah—like his father—started out well as king. Later, he too strayed from the ways of the Lord, but as kings of Judah went, he was a pretty good one. (Which is, I think, a sad commentary on the kings of Judah!) Before he went astray, however, he had a habit of listening whenever the Lord talked to him. One such occasion was recorded in this chapter:
2 Chronicles 9
There’s no doubt about it. The Queen of Sheba was totally smitten with Solomon. Everything about him and his kingdom took her in—the palace, the temple, the banquet, and especially his wisdom. She had been expecting to see great things on her visit to Solomon, but she wasn’t prepared for what she actually found when she got there: "She said to the king, 'The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me; you have far exceeded the report I heard.'" (vs 5-6)
1 Chronicles 26
There are so many things in Scripture that I don’t believe are coincidences. So many things that have layers of meaning—literal to symbolic and everything in between. And I found one of these things in this chapter of Chronicles that further outlined which Levites were in charge: "Shelomith and his relatives were in charge of all the treasuries for the things dedicated by King David... Some of the plunder taken in battle they dedicated for the repair of the temple of the Lord. And everything dedicated by Samuel the seer and by Saul son of Kish... and all the other dedicated things were in the care of Shelomith and his relatives." (vs 26-28)
Photo © Unsplash/Evi Radauscher
In Egypt
God's people ate their fill
of meat and bread.
And in the wilderness
God's people ate their fill
of meat and bread.
For forty years
—14,600 days and nights—
God revealed to the Israelites
not that He could feed them in the desert
but that it was He
who had fed them in Egypt.
For God, the manna wasn't miraculous.
It is no harder for Him
to make bread rain from the sky
than it is to make
wheat stand in the soil or
dough rise in the bowl or
the crust appear in the oven.
God miraculously provided
for His people in the wilderness
no more or less
than He had in Egypt.
We should stop wondering
why God no longer works miracles and
start asking why we still consider
anything in this life
mundane.
1 Chronicles 4
About 20 years ago, author Bruce Wilkinson made two verses of 1 Chronicles 4 famous with his book, The Prayer of Jabez. Who knew that a genealogical chapter of the Bible could produce something so lucrative? I remember the book well. Though I never actually read it, I remember the firestorm it caused in the Christian church. Many people were excited about it—going to their weekly group study about Jabez to learn how to garner some extra wealth from God. And an equal number of people were extremely opposed to it, shocked that any Christian should ask God for more.
2 Kings 4
Well, this whole chapter was about how God worked miracles through His prophet Elisha. The one that really stuck out to me, though, was the very first story about the widow, her two sons, and the olive oil. Just before creditors were going to come and take her boys into slavery because of their debts, Elisha told her, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side." (vs 3-4)
