Bryan Richardson

Insulate

Re: Verse reading–Esther 4:4-17; 7:1-6 (day three)

“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.” Power as firewall against fear. It seems like a good plan. But power is not a place to hide from the things that scare you, it’s a resource for helping the weak. Power is a useful tool, but it’s a poor insulator. When you will not face fear, you will not learn its limits, and so it becomes, in your estimation, more terrible–even invincible. Fear will then defeat you. If, on the other hand, you employ power to help those who have no voice and no standing, fear fades away. This is power rightly stewarded. It’s why God has given it to you, however much of it you possess. How will you use it today?

Conclusion

Re: Verse reading–1 Kings 19:1-18 (day three)

“Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

Taking Elijah’s words at face value (instead of as a melodramatic attempt to gain God’s sympathy), one can hear a mind that has concluded that effectiveness has run its course. Elijah perhaps envisioned a national revival, a shift in loyalties––even at the very top––from idolatry to revelation. He had staked so much on the outcome of this showdown with the prophets of Baal that its failure to break a generations-long pattern of spiritual decay left him aimless and empty. He could not conceive of any further work; his prophetic imagination was spent. When what is longed for doesn’t come to pass, does that nullify your future in this life? Are you now an also-ran? Has God decided to make second-fiddle music with your life?

Exposed

Re: Verse reading–Numbers 13:26-33; 14:1-9 (day three)

“Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.” You trust fear. You know fear. Fear’s been around your whole life, working to keep you safe, affirming what you’ve suspected all along. It keeps you away from risk, away from putting your mind to the hard task of solving problems, away from people calling for your help with troubling questions, away from the misery of those who need a word of hope or encouragement or warning. Courage, well, that’s a different story. Courage is a newcomer, spouting off new ways of thinking about the future. By thinking in those new ways, consider all you have to lose, fear tells you. Why do you think fear never tells you what you have to gain by staying afraid?

Burn

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 3:7-15, 4:1-17 (day three)

“Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses.” God’s anger is never an end in itself. Rather, his anger always moves creation towards what he desires. It burns away impurity, it renews, it opens up a new possibility of life in the face of the present circumstances for those who will come to their senses. God’s anger toward Moses opened up the possibility for Aaron to join this enterprise, and as a result, Moses did not run away. He accepted his assignment from God. And the rest is holy history. Face it: God gets angry with you. He does. Maybe he’s angry now. But that’s not the end. It’s just the beginning of his moving you to a new life of confident action if you won’t run away.

Killjoy

Re:Verse reading–Genesis 3:1-19 (day three)

“Where are you?” From Genesis to Jesus, God comes looking: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” God seeks because men are lost. But this is no tender tearjerker. We are willfully lost. We fear, but we don’t fear God. That is, we don’t fear him out of the recognition that he’s good and we’re not. Rather, we fear him because he’s out to ruin our hard-won independence. And that kind of fear will pave the way to our death. When God says to you, “Where are you?”–and he will indeed say that to you–which fear will rise up in you?

Outsider

Re:Verse reading–Judges 17:1-6; 18:1; 19:1; 20:1-7; 21:25 (day three)

“I’m a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah.” What does a priest of Yahweh bring to the mix? Power, baby. This is the new economy–bringing together an individual who wants to protect what’s his, and a holy man looking for the highest bidder. What could go wrong? Apparently nothing–and that’s the problem. Such an arrangement works because it conforms to fallen human desire. And religion that works for us–that’s certainly attractive. It’s spirituality as personal protection. But if all you’ve got is a security system, pretty soon everybody’s an intruder. Including the Lord. Now, seriously, what do you suppose would happen if God had access to your life?

Confrontation

Re:Verse reading–Judges 13:1-5, 14:1-9, 16:1-30 (day three)

“[The Lord] was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines.” What is this “seeking an occasion” business? He’s the Lord. Why doesn’t he just blow things up to get done what he wants to get done? A pagan deity–one that springs from the mind and desires of man–will crush the world when he doesn’t get his way. The actual God–the God who is–will seek, woo, stir, call to account, punish, confront, give generously, wait patiently. He’s at work in history and through people in order that he might redeem all who will believe him. God has nothing to prove to men, but he knows what it takes to save them. When he confronts you, it is that you might turn from evil.

Odds

Re:Verse reading–Judges 11:1-6, 28-40 (day three)

“Come,” they said, “be our commander, so we can fight the Ammonites.” When God made man, he made something good. That goodness rises up in the form of, among other things, resilience. We tend to gauge a person’s ability based on circumstances: “Odds are,” we say, “he won’t rise to the task.” But man is either resilient or he is not. He has either been made by God or he has not. When someone knows–and believes–that God has made him, he will indeed rise. He looks not at his ending. He looks at his origin.

Finite

Re:Verse reading–Judges 7:2-8, 15-22 (day three)

“Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.” Gideon’s ringing confidence came only after intense doubts and a profound mistrust of his own perception. From the first stirring of God’s call to the moment he sounded the battle cry, Gideon had wrestled with uncertainty, confusion, skepticism, hesitation–every frame of mind that we normally associate with a person who walks away from potential greatness. But such an association might in fact be faulty. Uncertainty is not unbelief; confusion is not contempt; skepticism is not scorn; hesitation is not heresy. Would that we all were so self-aware as to know that we are finite. Gideon did not say to God, “You owe me more evidence.” He said to God, “I’m not yet as strong as you can make me.”

Light

Re:Verse reading–Judges 6:1-2, 11-28, 36-40 (day three) “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” Note the passive construction of the question: “Why has this happened to us?” The phrasing reveals the way Gideon and his people thought about the world: Geopolitical turbulence and social unrest just happen, and Israel is supposed to exist as a little bubble of God’s favor in the middle of all that messiness without ever affecting it. As Isaiah made plain centuries later, however, Israel was to light the whole world so that God’s salvation would reach the ends of the earth. Right now, though, they couldn’t even light their own nation. With the rest of the world going to hell, can’t a nation get a little peace and quiet? Gideon’s answer lay within his own question. He eventually recognized that. Will we?