Tag: Bible

Scripture Saturdays

book-1936547_1280Role Models

A few years ago, I was thinking about role models and wondering who in the Bible I most closely identified with.  I know Jesus is the example we Christians strive to be like, but I was looking for a person like myself, with my weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the only person I could come up with was Saul.  Not fiery, driven Saul who is transformed into dedicated Paul.  No, crazy, murderous King Saul.

I have always felt enormously sorry for Saul. He had it all and blew it about as badly as a person can, killing himself as his sons and Israel’s soldier died around him. I pity him because I understand how he blew it and know I could make the same kind of stupid mistakes.

Saul seems to have been an insecure person.  When Samuel proclaims him king in front of the people of Israel, Saul hides (I Samuel 10:17-26).  In I Samuel 13:1-15, Saul panics when he thinks Samuel isn’t coming to offer offerings to God.  His army is scared of the amassing Philistine army, and men are deserting.  So Saul takes it upon himself to do the priest’s job.  When Samuel arrives, on time, he tells Saul that his family line won’t be established as kings because he hasn’t obeyed God’s commands.  From that time on, Saul makes worse and worse decisions, often out of fear.

I have struggled with anxiety all my life.  I know what it’s like to panic, make a dumb decision, realize it, panic again, and make an even worse one.  I haven’t tried to pin an enemy to a wall with a spear, like Saul attempted to do to David, but I regret actions I took out of fear.

The only good think about anxiety is that it drives me to rely on God.  I wanted to find someone in the Bible who had also struggled with anxiety, and with God’s help, became a strong servant for Him.  So many people in the Bible seemfearless, and the lesson they needed to learn is humility.  Samson, David, and Peter all had to have the arrogance knocked out of them at least once, so God could use them.  All those stories are instructive, but they weren’t ones I had personally experienced.  Wasn’t there anyone in the Bible who had to overcome anxiety instead of arrogance?

On a walk one day while praying, I got the answer: Gideon.

0

Scripture Saturday

nypl-digitalcollections-510d47da-e485-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99-001-wGod’s Blog

This is a speech I wrote to accompany the presentation of Bibles to the third-graders at my church and I wanted to share it because I enjoyed writing it.

How many of you know who your principal is?  Sure, you know his or her name and where that person works, but do you know his favorite food?  Or favorite subject?  What college she went to?  So you know enough about your principal to identify him or her and to say hello but not much else.

Sometimes, that’s all the more we know about God.  We know He’s there and He makes stuff like nature and miracles, but we really don’t know much else.

God wants us to know him as well as you do your mom and dad and best friends. Nothing is more important than getting to know God.  So God set up a blog, e-mail, and Facebook pages so we can do that.

The Bible is God’s blog. In it, God tells us about what he likes, like creating things, and what he hates, like sin.  He tells us about people He’s helped because they got to know him.  God posts all kinds of information about Himself on His blog in histories, poems, and essays.

He also receives e-mails, but when we e-mail God, we called it prayer.  We can e-mail God about anything, even just ordinary, everyday things, and He always responds.

God also has Facebook pages.  Interestingly, God uses real faces for his Facebook pages.  Everybody who believes Jesus saves us from our sins is a Facebook page for God.  Checking out all the Facebooks pages here in our church is a wonderful way to get to know God.

So remember to use all through of God’s electronic formats – blog, e-mail, and Facebook — and you will be working on the most important thing you can do with your life.

0

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑