Author: Bryan Richardson

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.

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.

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.”

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?

Re:Verse reading–Judges 4:1-22 (day three) 

“On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites.”  For such an unfaithful nation, the Israelites certainly occupied a place of favor with God.  But that is precisely the point.  God doesn’t wait until people love him first; he doesn’t look for people to become good enough to warrant his help.  God loves first.  God helps first.  And as we can plainly see, God does all this for people who don’t deserve it.  This is profoundly irritating to us.  Shouldn’t people have to meet a minimum standard to merit God’s attention?  If we can ask that question with a straight face, should people be thankful that neither you nor I are God?

Re:Verse reading–Judges 2:1-3, 6-22 (day three)

“Why have you done this?”  It’s not uncommon for people to ask questions of God.  You might have expressed that thought to God just this morning.  But sometimes God asks questions of us.  When God does so, when God puts questions to us–Where are you? Where is your brother?  What have you done?–he is clearly not seeking information out of ignorance.  That much is self-evident.  What is more important, though, is the fact that God asks questions of us at all.  When God does this, he is addressing us as beings who are responsible for our actions, and beings who are capable of changing the way we think.  When God asks a question, will you act surprised?  Will you act like you don’t know what he’s talking about?

Re:Verse reading—Joshua 23; 24:14-15 (day three)

“So be very careful to love the Lord your God.” Love is a movement of the will. Gravity is a curvature of space and time. Love is not gravity. But we often think of it as such. We speak of “falling in love”, and by that we mean moving toward another person–helpless as a meteor caught in earth’s gravitational field. That’s not how the Bible speaks of love. The scriptures teach us that love’s first gear is the heart, that is, the will: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” We will not drift into love with God. If we would love God, we must “be very careful to love” him. Joshua tells us to do what Moses taught him: Remember, talk about, teach about, and serve the Lord.

Re:Verse reading–Joshua 9 (day three)

“They resorted to a ruse.”  The Gibeonites were attempting to stay alive–and they succeeded.  The Israelites did not attempt to learn wisdom from God to see through this charade, but that’s not the Gibeonites’ fault.  In fact, we all should be so shrewd.  Jesus said in Luke 16 that we have much to learn from those who use their minds to find new ways around old problems.  He seemed to recognize a tendency of those who have known God’s favor to grow spiritually and intellectually complacent.  We tend to make plans for the future God has made available to us while we ignore today.  But we won’t have a future until we rightly steward the present.

Re:Verse reading–Joshua 7 (day three)

“What are you doing down on your face?”  When is it time to be done with prayer?  The answer is the one the Lord gives to Joshua: When prayer becomes a substitute for doing what needs doing.  Now, we do not ignore the Bible’s instruction to “pray without ceasing.”  We do, however, recognize the temptation to use prayer to stall for time, to keep confrontation at bay, to delay conflict.  If you’re honest, you know you would often rather ask questions of God than answer the question that has been put to you.  If action never follows prayer, to what end are we praying?  The steps will be faltering, awkward, arduous.  But so are a baby’s, and we cheer him on.  You’ve prayed.  Now what will you do?

Re: Verse reading–Joshua 3:5-17, 4:14-24 (day three)

“As soon as…their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.” Approaching a violently flooding river will not soothe your mind. And that’s the inglorious, unappealing, discomforting reality of faith. It’s easy to think of faith as enticing: Come on in, the water’s fine! Except it’s not. Certainly not at the Jordan’s banks. Not at the base of Moriah. Not at the edge of the trackless Sinai. Not at the feet of the only one who could possibly heal your daughter. Not in front of a crowd of religious leaders with rocks in their hands. No, faith isn’t comfy. That’s because faith involves going where you don’t know. Here’s what you can know, however: You can know the one who has brought you to this moment. That’s why it’s possible to go ahead.