FamilyLife is offering you a FREE DEVOTIONAL video series based on my 5-week interview with them. It’s called Unseen.
Life can feel lonely and overwhelming. Still, your life is both seen and cherished. God is working fiercely behind the scenes of your life. He worked to bring astonishing triumphs to the lives of four historical characters who faced devastating, alienating, and even life-threatening situations. Friend, God is working!
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Job’s wife reminds me of myself in some ways. I am certainly not above sounding like a foolish woman when faced with frustrations, disappointments and pain. My prayer is that God’s demonstrated kindness to me—above all, the atoning death and imputed righteousness of His Son—would continuously guard me to a faith that reveals itself in perseverance and joy in trial (James 1:2-5). I want to found clinging to Christ when weighed!
Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, is mentioned within a larger drama involving powerful kings, a broken oath, famine, execution by hanging, and propitiatory justice. In short, the plotline is intense. The story is found near the end of the book of 2 Samuel and it’s darker than any fictional folklore the Grimm brothers could have produced. Rizpah held a lengthy vigil over the dead bodies of her sons and her actions moved the mercy of the king of Israel—and the King of Heaven.
I'm thankful to the Reformed African American Network for their re-post of my 2014 article, Parental Failures and the Gospel. The beginning paragraphs follow and the full post can be found here. Always grateful for your read!
I could begin this post with countless descriptions of my parental failures. Moments when anger got the best of me; times when a little patience would have made all the difference; or just plain insecurities in making the right decisions for my children at every moment and at every stage of their development.
You might agree that feelings of inadequacy are common to parents; whether relatively new like me or seasoned with experience, we feel the weight of the responsibility and the immensity of the task. But in some ways, feelings of inadequacy can be a blessing!
The Mosaic Law declared a woman unclean for seven days during her menstrual cycle. After this period, she was to cleanse herself by washing (Lev. 15:19-28). Scripture tells us that the bathing woman, Bathsheba, “had been purifying herself from her uncleanness” (2 Sam. 11:4). Perhaps the same spring weather that sent David to the roof also led Bathsheba to conduct her ritual cleansing in some airy corner of her courtyard. We can only speculate since the passage doesn’t specify her exact location. But we do know this: the king of Israel stood atop watching a ceremony intended for the LORD alone.
Hannah addressed God as “the LORD of Hosts” (Yahweh Sabaoth) in her prayer. The name translates as “the LORD Almighty,” the one who rides before legions of armies. We might imagine this victorious title declared at the parting of the Red Sea or the conquest of Jericho, but Hannah’s narrative is the first time the name appears in the Old Testament. The woman who was thundered against by a persistent adversary, needed the LORD Almighty to remember and defend her.
In the days of the judges when everyone did what was right in his own eyes, a Moabite woman does what is right in God’s eyes (Ruth 1:1; Judges 21:25). Ruth reflects God’s own covenant love for his people in choosing to leave her familial home for the saving of another. She turned from father, mother, and country for a people she didn’t know and found refuge under the wings of Israel’s God (Ruth 2:11-12).
Pharaoh’s fatal law must have arrived sometime after the birth of Aaron since he was alive and didn’t appear to be in danger of the edict. Unfortunately for Jochebed, her third pregnancy collided with the crisis of the decree. The king’s war against a nation found its target in her womb. But this mother would remember God’s former work of salvation.
In other words, atonement of sin is settled for those whose trust is in Christ alone. So then God doesn’t love you less when you sin today and more when you obey tomorrow. Instead He loves you because you are His—an adopted son/daughter, made clean through His Son and sealed and preserved by His Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Ephesians 1:13-14).
But what of your persistent sins? Here, we find that Christ still washes the feet of His disciples. What do I mean? “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean” (John 13:10). Those justified in Christ are Simul Justus et Peccator—at the same time just (or righteous) and sinner. We are positioned in Christ and are seen by God through His imputed righteousness yet inherently we sin. We are clean saints with dirty feet. But just as our justification is achieved by God alone, so is our sanctification enabled by Him alone.
The outcast Tamar was languishing away from God’s covenant family because of superstition and neglect of duty. God had promised to bless Abraham and his offspring (Gen. 12:1-3). This blessing would extend to all the families of the earth—as far as the curse is found. We caught a glimpse of this when God sustained Hagar and her boy for Abraham’s sake (Gen. 21:13, 20). Would this blessing stretch to Tamar too?
Thoughts of pregnancy must have consumed Rachel. Each month brought a fresh hope and then the bloody reality of her emptiness. I can’t help but remember God’s poem to Woman: “In pain you shall bring forth children.” The pain of Genesis 3:16 includes infertility as much as it does labor contractions. The effects of the Fall are here—but so is God’s mercy.
Leah was a third wheel in her own household. Her husband slept with her but didn’t honor her with love. What tears those weak eyes must have shed! Jacob didn’t regard her—but God saw her. The giver of life enabled her to bear six sons and at least one daughter, Dinah (Gen. 30:19-21). The names of her sons are telling. They testify to her hope and her great suffering.
As I write, some 3,400 persons have died from the outbreak – leaving families in dismay and children orphaned and stigmatized. Worse still, the virus continues to spread uncontained. The CDC estimates 1.4 million Ebola cases by the end of January! They see no end to the outbreak at present.
Today, I remember the Good Shepherd in light of the persecuted church. As I write, thousands of Iraqi Christians are displaced; threatened by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants to either abandon home, convert to Islam, or face death. Many roam today as refugees in Mosul without the promise of food or shelter.
In Northern Nigeria, the Islamic militant group, Boko Haram, continues to bomb churches, murder Christians and abduct girls for forced marriages. Christians there are living under the constant threat of death – they are indeed sheep trailing through the valley of the shadow of death!
I would have been a good monk and a great Pharisee. I like rules. I like order. I like disciplining myself, especially if it brings the commendation of others, particularly those in authority. This inclination is constant and often reveals itself in self-judgment. I can be hard on myself—all the while justifying my strict tendencies as a desire for progressive sanctification. But even godly pursuits can be perverted if not seen in light of the gospel.
Within a year, Sarah conceived, Isaac. His name means “laughter.” God turned the source of Sarah’s laughter from cynicism to joy (Gen. 21:6-7). And her laughter reminds us that God’s gift of children is never given because of our works, but by his grace. Human reproduction, like spiritual regeneration, is ultimately the merciful work of the living God (Jn. 1:12-13).
There is a story told of a man whose teenage son was brutally murdered by another boy – a member of a gang. Unfortunately, this part of the story is nothing new, a gang related shooting is no surprise to the ear. What happens next however will not only stun the ear but also blow the mind! The father of the murdered boy pays the associated fees of the case and adopts his son’s killer as his own! Kirk Cameron, in the Biggest Question, recounts the tale here as he describes a meeting with this father and his adopted son!
