Punished for Cleaning up?

I had an interesting conversation with Kadin the other night. It went something like this:

ME: Do you know why you're in trouble?

KADIN: But Dad, I was just trying to clean up all my toys in the living room so you and Mom wouldn't have to trip on them.

ME: Was that what you were supposed to be doing?

KADIN: But I thought you always wanted me to clean my stuff up.

ME: Unless we already told you to get in bed.

KADIN: But I thought it would make you happy...

ME: I love it when you clean up stuff without us asking, it makes me very happy, but I'm even more happy when you do what you're told.

In 1 Samuel there is a story of King Saul. In chapter 13 he was given clear instructions that he was to wait for Samuel for seven days, and that when Samuel arrived he would offer the sacrifice and God's blessing would be upon the people. Towards the end of the seventh day the people started to get restless, and Saul decided that he would offer the sacrifice to God. Here is the conversation that resulted from this decision:

11 "What have you done?" asked Samuel.
Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, 12 I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."

13 "You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. 14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command."

To paraphrase, King Saul said, "But I thought it would make God happy..."

I think an even more telling story is in chapter 15, when Saul is told by the prophet to kill everything in a particular area, and yet he decided to save the best stuff to offer a sacrifice to God. That's when God reveals to him the same thing I was trying to get across to Kadin, namely that doing what He says is more important than doing what we think He wants. Here is the way God put it in the bible:

22 But Samuel replied:
"Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has rejected you as king."

God was trying to stamp out the same attitude that caused the Pharisees in Jesus time, and causes a religious spirit today. This is the attitude that made the Pharisees balk when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, or when He chose not to have His disciples fast on certain days like everyone else did. We need to learn to do what God is saying now, not what we think He wants.

With Kadin, his heart wasn't to clean the living room, it was to try and stay up a few minutes longer. I think with King Saul, he wanted to please the people more than he wanted to please God. God is good at exposing the attitudes of our hearts, and He wants a people who a fully devoted to Him, not using Him for our benefit. Ouch.

Learning to walk with Him daily,

-Jeff-

About Fasting pt 2

Fasting brings power in our lives. In case you missed it, here is my first post on fasting. I wanted to show an example from scripture about the power of fasting, and I came across this interesting little nugget in the book of 2 Chronicles:

1 After this, the armies of the Moabites, Ammonites, and some of the Meunites declared war on Jehoshaphat. 2 Messengers came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast army from Edom is marching against you from beyond the Dead Sea. They are already at Hazazon-tamar.” (This was another name for En-gedi.) 3 Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news and begged the Lord for guidance. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting.

As you can see there was a vast army approaching Israel and they were given very little warning. Typically they would send out messengers to the corners of the land to raise up an army to defend their country, but with the speed of this attack there was no time to do that. Jehoshaphat recognizes that their situation is desperate and he knows that the only way out is through prayer and fasting.

Sometime during their prayers he must have heard from God, because what he does the next day is VERY strange. Let's pick it up in verse 21:

21 After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead
of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy
splendor. This is what they sang:

“Give thanks to the Lord;
his faithful love endures forever!”

I wouldn't want to be one of those singers! But because of their prayer and fasting, God showed up and delivered them. In fact the army of Israel never had to lift their swords because by the time they got to the battlefield, the armies from the other nations had killed each other off and Israel just walked around and picked up the plunder.

And that's just how God works. In the darkest and most desperate times, He fights for us and provides victories in ways that we can never even imagine. What are you going through today? What are the giants facing you in this life? Through prayer and fasting, God wants to provide a way where there doesn't seem to be one.

The Mexi-blog pt.10- The finale

We're back home now! After spending 23 hours in a van (including driving 20 miles in 3 hours due to a brushfire in So. California), Tiffanney and I decided that we hadn't driven quite enough and therefore thought it was a good idea to go and see our kids right away. At that point we didn't realize that our 2 and a half hour journey up north would take us 6 hours. By the time our heads hit the pillows that night at my parents house we had been awake for 36 hours and had spent 29 of them in a vehicle, including 9 hours in stop and go traffic.

They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, mine began with driving back to Disneyland to see if they had sorted through the hundreds of pairs of lost sunglasses to find the ones my wife had lost a day earlier. After being denied once again (it was the third time we'd tried), I returned empty handed to our hotel to begin packing things up and prepping the van to leave. I also took some time to reminisce about the trip that was and compile my thoughts into what would later become this blog that you are reading right now. (Update: That part really was written the day we left, everything else was written 8/14)

Here is a summary of what happened, including a couple of testimonies:

• Even before we left Tiffanney and I knew this would be a great trip, but it was far above what we imagined. We had a service on Wednesday night that was just incredible. As worship was getting started I felt God telling me that we needed to pray for the pastors(please take a second to do that right now, too) of the church. We called out to God and His response was incredible. God took us and transformed us into vessels to be used by His hands. We were willing and so God poured through us mightily.
  
• There was one man who was specifically blessed that night because not only did God heal his knee pain (meaning that he'd be able to work again), but God healed his relationship with his wife and daughter that night too.
  
• Tiffanney preached a great word on Thursday night, and again the power of the Spirit fell, this time in the mission church we were at. I know that God is continuing the work down there even right now, and I believe next year we'll see the fruit of it.
  
• God stretched us in ways we never thought possible. Whether it was VBS or learning to preach with an interpreter, God used Mexico as an opportunity to bring us out of our shells just a little bit more. Because of this experience and Summer Camp, God has birthed in the hearts of our students the desire to form a drama outreach team. We did our first human video a couple weeks ago and it was incredible.
  

May God stir in each of us the passion to follow Him in reaching the lost,

-Jeff-