When fathers fail...

To what extent does a parent carry responsibility for the sins and poor choices of their offspring? In 1st Samuel chapter three, we learn that, as a small child, Samuel had brought a prophetic word of judgement to Eli for his failure to discipline his sons. (Read here) Now, in chapter eight vs 1 - 5, we read that in his old age, Samuel's own sons were greedy and corrupt. In fact, this seems to have been one of the factors involved in the Israelites' decision to ask for a king; they didn't want Samuel's sons to be their leaders.

Was this due to Samuel's failure as a father? Did he fail in this crucial role, just as much as Eli did? (We don't know anything about his wife, and we don't even know who raised Samuel himself after Eli died, or what sort of model of parenthood he grew up with.) Did he give himself to his prophetic role as the expense of his fatherly role? Or was it just one of those sad situations where children choose to go their own way, even despite the good example of their parents?

The Bible doesn't tell us the answer to that question... but it does give us a little more insight into the people's demand for a king. Read on in the post below...

We want to be like everyone else...

From the Lord's perspective, in 1st Samuel chapter 8, the people were rejecting God and not simply rejecting Samuel's family when they asked for a king. God told Samuel to warn them about the consequences - about the taxation and other costs and responsibilities of having a king... but the people still replied, "We want to be like the other people around us."

What a tragic ambition! The whole point of being the people of God is that they were special, chosen, supposed to stand out as being different from the people around them. But no, they wanted to be just the same as everyone else.

How much is that still a temptation for God's people today, in the 21st Century? How willing are we to be different in the way we think, speak, dress and act? Or how much do we want just to "fit in" and be like everyone else? It's been two thousand years since the early Christians were encouraged not to conform to the world around them, but instead to allow God to completely transform them so that they stood out as being noticeably different from other people. (Romans 12: 2) When we really search our hearts today, are we eagerly seeking transformation or do we prefer conformity? Do we dare to be different or do we want to be just like the other people around us?

Like the Israelites' decision to have a king, conformity can be our choice... but it will always come with a price tag.

More than a lucky charm...

In chapters four and five of 1st Samuel, a non-human player takes centre stage. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God in the midst of the people of Israel, but they were about to discover that it was no lucky charm and could not in itself compensate for the people's failure to live their lives every day with an awareness of the presence of God.

After being defeated in battle by their enemies (the Philistines), the Israelites decided, somewhat presumptuously, to bring the Ark of God into the camp, as if its mere presence would work some sort of magic and give them victory the next time round. Well, it certainly had a psychological and emotional impact: the Israelites' shout of joy was earth-shaking, and the Philistines were filled with panic at the news.

But the symbolism of the Ark could never be a substitute for the reality of living in dependence on God's Spirit (no more than wearing a cross or carrying a Bible could do that for us today.) The initial emotional impact backfired for the Israelites. Perhaps it made them too cocky. It certainly made the Philistines fight harder than ever before and win another resounding victory.

The shameful ending to the story was that the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God's presence among them, was captured and carried off into enemy territory - a sobering reminder that, even though nothing and no one can rob us of the true presence of God, they can certainly rob us of material things that are only a representation of the reality.

The Ark may have been only a symbol, but the all-powerful God was not going to allow that symbol to be abused and disrespected. When the Philistines placed the Ark in their temple, next to the idol of their own god, the statue of Dagon fell down before the Ark of God and ultimately smashed into several pieces - a clear message that there was no equality between these two "gods." 
I find deep symbolism in the fact that Dagon's head and hands were broken off - a powerful message that this pseudo-god had no mind to think with and no power to act.

Everywhere the Ark was taken, it brought disaster for the Philistines - another clear reminder that outward forms can never be a replacement for our obedient dependence on the genuine presence of God in our midst. 

(Before too many months had gone past, the Philistines became desperate to return the Ark to the people of Israel.)

The downfall of being nice...

In the early chapters of the Old Testament book of 1st Samuel, we meet a character called Eli, who was a priest in God's tabernacle at the time. I have to confess that I've always thought of Eli as one of the "bad guys" - one of the negative examples that the Bible gives to us as a warning for our own lives. This week, however, when re-reading the first four chapters of 1st Samuel, I found myself wondering if Eli was basically a "nice" guy and whether his misplaced "niceness" actually played a part in his downfall.

Eli makes his first appearance in chapter one, when Hannah is praying in the tabernacle. He's not very discerning (he thinks Hannah is drunk), but turns out to be quite compassionate; once he realises her distress, he blesses her prayer without even knowing what she was praying for. Again, this was not very discerning, but it shows that he was basically a kind man. Some years later, he is willing to take Hannah's child into the tabernacle and raise the boy as his own, so that the mother can fulfill her vow to the Lord.

Later, in chapter 3, when Samuel first hears God's voice, we see that Eli (although a little slow to catch on) is ultimately sensitive enough to recognise that God is speaking to the boy, and he's humble enough to accept the rather harsh message that God spoke through the child. All in all, he's shaping up to be a kindly, grandfather-like figure..... Or is he?

If we read these chapters carefully, we can see that Eli's "niceness" and indulgence played a big part in his downfall and in the destruction of other family members too. It led to a situation where he didn't discipline his own sons or teach them to be responsible (see chapter two) and this created an environment where Hophni and Phineas abused their priestly roles - sleeping with the young women who served at the entrance to the tabernacle, and stealing consecrated meat from the sacrifices that people brought (which meant, in effect, that they were stealing from God, as well as stealing from the people.)

No parent begins by letting their kid steal from others or have sex right under their own roof. No, it begins much earlier, by giving them whatever they want, never correcting them, and always letting them have their own way. God sent a prophet to rebuke Eli and to point out that his seemingly minor character flaw of indulgence was not only a serious case of misplaced priorities, but was also a sin of idolatry. "Why do you give your children more honour than you give me?" God asks him, in 1 Sam 2: 29

The sad irony of Eli's indulgence is that it wasn't only dishonouring to God; it was also harmful and destructive to his sons. His failure to give them boundaries and teach them responsibility ultimately led to their downfall and their death.
The sad ending to Eli's life shows us that he had been self-indulgent too. A lifetime of overeating had made him very overweight in his old age and, when he heard bad news and fell backwards off his chair, his great weight caused him to break his neck.

What a tragic ending to the life of a basically kind, generous, lenient and "nice" guy! Eli's indulgence is a warning to us that what might seem like niceness can actually be negligence and what might seem like lenience can actually be liability. 

It's all about making a choice...

Sometimes we assume that the people in the Bible had always been followers of God. But in his "farewell speech," Joshua reminds them that their ancestors, who lived on the other side of the Euphrates river, originally worshipped other gods. This makes it all the more amazing that Terah, and then later his son Abraham  (in Genesis chapters 11 and 12) heard and obeyed God's call to follow Him. They were not only heading to an unknown land, they were also following a God who was still largely unknown to them.

I suppose this is true of all of us when we first become Christians: we make our initial choice based on what others have told us about God... but then begins the journey of discovering personally what He is really like.

These people in Joshua chapter 24, however, were in a completely different situation. They had been born in the wilderness and had grown up seeing God do all sorts of miracles there.  Then, for thirty years or so, they had seen Him working in their midst and giving them great victories as they took possession of the land He had promised them. These people knew who they were dealing with, because they had experienced the faithfulness of God for themselves. They knew that not a single one of His promises to them had failed. (Joshua 23: 14)

Yet, despite this first hand experience of God,  they still had compromise and idols in their midst (vs 23). So it's to these very people that Joshua outlines life's ultimate challenge: Make a decision today about whom you're going to serve. Will it be the gods of the past, that your ancestors used to serve? Will it be gods in the future, that you see the Canaanite people serving? Or will it be the one true God, that you've experienced to be powerful and faithful in your own lives?

So the people made their choice and pledged to follow God (vs 24)... but it only lasted for a limited number of years (vs 31) - only as long as people were "personally experiencing" all that God had done for them.
You see, this isn't a decision that can be made once and then forgotten about; it truly is a decision that needs to be renewed every day of our lives, and Joshua's words still ring with urgency across the millennia: Choose today who you're going to serve.  Your whole life will be influenced by that choice.

Jumping to Conclusions...

Reading in the Old Testament book of Joshua, this morning I arrived at chapter 22 and uncovered an interesting case study in crucial relational skills.

If you're familiar with the Biblical story of the people of Israel, you'll know that God freed them from a life of slavery and took them on a journey to find their promised land. Some of the tribes claimed good pasture land on the east side of the Jordan river, but were nonetheless required to cross the river and help their brothers fight to conquer the land on the west side of the Jordan.

As chapter 22 begins, Joshua is affirming these so-called transJordan tribes for their faithfulness and obedience to God. Now that the rest of the land has been conquered, the eastern tribes are heading home to their own land on the other side of the river. And that's when an interesting misunderstanding takes place.

The western tribes hear that the eastern tribes have "built an altar" next to the river. (vs 11 - 12) Horrified that their brothers are so quickly abandoning the one true God, they prepare to go to war against them... but fortunately, they have the wisdom to first send a delegation to hear what the others have to say about it.

Just as well that they did! It turns out the truth of the situation was the complete opposite of how they had interpreted it. Rather than being an expression of idolatry, the building of the altar was in fact an expression of the eastern tribes' desire to safeguard their relationship with the Lord and make sure that future generations always had the right and the freedom to worship the God of Israel.
(vs 24 - 28)

So everything ended peacefully, the eastern tribes continued their journey home and the altar was allowed to remain by the river as a memorial and a witness between them that both the western and eastern tribes were committed to the one true God.

The Israelites' good responses in this critical situation are in contrast to the relational mistakes that we sometimes make when we jump to conclusions about the motives and actions of someone else.

1. Sometimes we "rush to war" before taking time to check the facts. It can be easy to pass judgement on others and jump to conclusions about what they did and why. Let's learn from the example of these western tribes who had the wisdom to engage in dialogue and check their own understanding before rushing to war against their brothers.
2. When the other party tells us their side of the story, it's so important to embrace their account with trust and humility. How often has a misunderstanding been made even worse by our arrogantly insisting that our initial conclusion was the right one. "You're lying. We know that you built that altar out of rebellion towards God." The western tribes didn't do this, but had the humility to acknowledge their own mistake.
3. On the other hand, it can be easy for the misjudged party to respond with outrage and offence - "How dare you..." or "How could you possibly think that we would build an altar to false gods?" - especially if the accusation has not been expressed very diplomatically. ( vs 16 says that the delegation demanded to know why the transJordan tribes were betraying the God of Israel!) Fortunately the eastern tribes responded with humility and not with anger in explaining their side of what had been done.

Three simple principles, but they can make all the difference when we are dealing with potentially crucial situations. How quick we can be to jump to conclusions about others. Let's extend them the grace and understanding that we would want them to give to us if the shoe were on the other foot.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers..."

Attitudes to inheritance...

I've been reflecting recently on the subject of inheritance. Not the sort of inheritance that you get when someone dies - like money or a house - but the sort of inheritance that God has prepared for us, an inheritance that can be both physical and spiritual.

My thoughts were prompted by my daily reading in the book of Joshua, a part of the Bible where we read about how the people of Israel entered into and took possession of their "promised land." This morning, for example, I was struck by the passage where Joshua asks the Israelites: "How long are you going to wait before taking possession of the remaining land that the Lord has given to you?" (Joshua 18: 3)

The nature of the question suggests that there has been a level of passivity on the part of some tribes. (In fact, there were seven tribes who still hadn't claimed their inheritance at this point in the story.) The question also implies that it's possible for God to have already given us things, but for us not to have taken possession of them yet - not to have made them fully ours.

In the previous few chapters, we gain some more insight into the different possible attitudes towards inheritance:

1. There's a recurring pattern of tribes being given land, but failing to drive out the Canaanites in order to claim it. (Josh 16 vs 10, Josh 17 vs 12 - 13) The land was theirs in theory, but they didn't put in the hard work to make it theirs in reality.
2. Then there was the tribe who complained that they didn't have enough land (Josh 17 vs 14 - 16) but their own fears and feelings of inadequacy prevented them from conquering giants in order to gain more land.
3. In contrast to this, there were some sisters, daughters of Zelophehad, who had not been given an inheritance, simply because they were female. Not content to settle for this, they took action and came to Joshua with a plea for land to be allocated to them.

I want to be like those women, who speak up for their inheritance, rather than like the others who allowed fears, laziness or compromise to hold them back.

So, back to chapter 18. If these seven tribes still hadn't claimed their inheritance, where were they living at this point? I suppose they were living in and enjoying the inheritance of other tribes. And many Christians do that today: they enjoy the revelation entrusted to their pastor, or they share the ministry entrusted to their team leader. That's not wrong in itself, if you know that your calling and inheritance are the same. But it can also be the lazy option if it prevents us from claiming other territory that the Lord wants to be ours. Joshua called on these tribes to explore the land, to write down what territory still needed to be claimed, and to conquer that land as their inheritance.

Read on below for more thoughts about inheritance...

Caleb's reward and Acsah's request...

Joshua chapter 15 begins a long list of the territory given to each of the tribes of Israel. It could be tempting to skip over it and not take the time to read carefully through the detailed lists of towns, villages and geographical features. But right in the middle of the chapter (vs 13 - 19) is a section about one family's attitude to embracing their inheritance. The first person we meet is a man called Caleb.

Caleb is already an old man, eighty five years old, by this point in the story. In fact, apart from Joshua, Caleb is the only older person to enter the promised land; all the others had died in the wilderness, because of their rebellion against God forty years earlier. Joshua and Caleb, two of the spies who originally checked out the land, were the only ones who trusted the Lord and said, "With God on our side, we can do this."

I wonder how Caleb felt about the fact that he had spent forty years trudging through the desert because of other people's unbelief and poor decisions. It would have been so easy for him to have felt resentment and bitterness about all the wasted years of that four decade delay. Now, at last, he is in the promised land, but his opportunity to take possession of an inheritance comes at a point where he is elderly, and probably conscious of his somewhat limited future in the land.

It seems, however, that Caleb chose not to look at the losses of the past, but to focus instead on the possible gains of the future. He didn't dwell on the many years already behind him, but set his sights on the quality of the years still remaining. "Give me this mountain," he said.  Caleb, at 85 years of age, still demonstrates the principle character quality that he was known for: he followed God wholeheartedly. (Joshua 14 vs 6 - 12)

In chapter 15, we read of how Caleb went on to conquer giants and claim the hill country as his own. He was also diligent to procure a worthy husband and an inheritance for his daughter, Acsah.
Acsah herself, in verse 19, exemplifies another principle to embracing our inheritance. You see, just because something is an inheritance doesn't mean that it is perfect. It may still come with challenges and work to be done. Acsah realised that her inheritance consisted of land in the Negev - a dry desert region. Rather than becoming ungrateful about that, Acsah sought a way to embrace and make the most of that inheritance. She approached her father again, and she asked him to grant her springs of water to compensate for the dryness of the terrain. Sure enough, Caleb gave her two different water sources - the upper and lower springs.

This father and daughter speak to me of two possible mistakes we could make concerning the embracing of our inheritance.

• If we're "older," it could be easy for us to resist the effort involved in taking new ground; easy for us to reason that we're not going to be around much longer, and to wonder if we really want to invest time and effort in claiming an inheritance that we won't be able to enjoy for long. Caleb didn't do that; he wholeheartedly embraced what God still had for him in his older years.
• If we're younger, it could be easy for us to cast a superficial glimpse at our inheritance and to feel ingratitude or self pity because of its limitations. Perhaps it doesn't look as impressive or potentially fruitful as the ministry of another person who's been around longer than we have. But Acsah didn't do that; she looked at what she'd been given, she reflected on how she could make the most of it, and she boldly asked her father for even more.

Embracing our inheritance isn't a passive thing; it involves effort and faith... but God is with us each step of the way.

Walking in the opposite spirit...

You're no doubt familiar with a Bible principle that is often called, "coming in the opposite spirit." One of the clearest examples of it in scripture is found in Proverbs 15 verse 1: a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. When someone speaks to us with anger or aggression, it's tempting to respond in the same way, but that only makes things worse; often a kind and gentle answer is the best way to diffuse the situation and help the person move beyond their negative attitude.

It works in all kinds of other ways too. I could tell you testimonies about times when our mission centre was in great financial need, in a nation with a strong poverty mentality. Despite our own need, God would often prompt us to move in generosity and give things away to others.

It's found also in the teaching of Jesus - for example, in Matthew 5: 38 - 41, the passage that gives us the concept of "turning the other cheek." But coming in the opposite spirit goes even beyond turning the other cheek. It's not about simply ignoring something bad that's been done to us and refusing to repay evil with evil; it's about actively stepping out and doing something good for that person who meant us harm.

I remember, many years ago now, a friend telling me about how he experienced this in his own church situation. Over a period of time, he discovered that a man in the church was spreading rumours about him, saying unkind and critical things that were damaging to his reputation. My friend confessed that he felt tempted to gossip about all the failings of this man, and thus perhaps to reduce the influence and credibility of the rumours. Instead, he decided to engage in "positive gossip." When he was with people from church, he would make positive comments about this man - perhaps saying what a good father he was, or how well he worked with his Sunday School class. 

Gradually, this other man began to hear some of these "compliments" on the grapevine.  I wonder if it was a shock to him that his "enemy" was saying all these good things about him. He never did acknowledge or apologise to my friend for the rumours he had caused... but my friend said that he gradually noticed a change in their relationship as this man began to reach out to him in friendship and conversation. They never did become "best friends," but the rumours and criticism stopped, and the two men went on to have a fruitful partnership in the church's youth ministry.

Yes, there are many examples in the Bible or in modern life where we see the power of coming in the opposite spirit. But in recent months I've been applying the principle in an unusual and completely unexpected way - a very practical and physical way.

You may know that I live with a certain level of pervasive pain, having been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia about a dozen years ago. If you live with constant pain, it's very easy to make lifestyle choices that seek to avoid or minimise the pain - like taking pain killers and trying to limit your physical movements to things that won't provoke further aching and stiffness. (Not carrying heavy things or engaging in too much physical activity.) While this may work to some extent, it also leads to a lower overall level of general fitness.

And so I decided to "come in the opposite spirit." Instead of making "safe" choices that might minimise pain in the short term, I decided to adopt strategies that would help me maintain more cardiac and general fitness over the long term. I needed activities that would not be harmful to my body, but would help me maintain a level of relative fitness and mobility.

My fitness partner for this journey has been my neighbour's dog, Buba. I'm not someone who's particularly motivated to go for walks by myself, but I do enjoy going walking with a dog. At the time my neighbour got her new puppy, I was in a season of life where I could barely walk more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time because of the pain in my back and the osteophytes on my feet. My first task was to find footwear that was soft-soled, causing no pressure on my sore feet. (Currently, it's a pair of not very elegant men's walking sandals!!) My second task was to get walking - beginning with leisurely strolls through the park, and working up to slightly longer walks in the countryside near my house. In summer time, I try to add in an occasional swim to supplement the walking.

Well, I'm not pain free... but I have to confess that I feel better in general, and I'm encouraged that I'm managing to keep mobile and to walk more now than was even possible for me a few years ago.

There's a short video called 23½ Hours, which is based on a number of scientific and medical studies. In the video, a doctor asks, "What is the single best thing that we can do for our health?" and makes a recommendation that has been shown to have a positive effect on medical conditions ranging from arthritis to high blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease. It's less than ten minutes long, and you can watch the video by clicking this link.

For me, in the meantime, I'm continuing to work towards the health benefits that come from "walking in the opposite spirit," and I'm incredibly thankful to have Buba to help me with that.