He Tells the Best Stories. Esther 7:9.

Everyone loves a great storyteller—and there is none greater than God himself. But the Bible is not an easy read. There are not only language challenges but also the way we tell stories has changed significantly in the last four thousand years. But the best readers can get past such challenges, and the rest of us can benefit from their help. Find a translation you understand. There is nothing wrong with a modern translation or a paraphrase. After all, it’s better to read a paraphrase like the Living Bible or the Message Bible than to read no Bible at all. (A paraphrase simply means someone put the language into easier words. Modern words.)

Think of the Bible stories you know. Can anything compete with them? God creates time, space, stars, planets, and the earth? Noah builds an ark and God fills it with animals? Moses confronts Pharaoh and God sends ten plagues designed to rebuke each of ten false gods? That’s incredible. Think of the miracles: the earth opens up and swallows God’s enemies? God defeats an enemy army with hailstones? David kills Goliath? Ruth and Boaz. Abraham and Sarah. Mary and Joseph. Families. Feuds. War. Peace. The Promised Land and the birth of a nation. Jesus plays with children, raises the dead, dies on a cross, comes back to life. These stories are unlike anything in literature.

One of the best stories is the book of Esther. The Persian king brings a beautiful young Jewish girl into his harem and makes her queen. Haman, the king’s no. 2 man, hates Esther’s uncle, a godly man who refuses to bow to a him, and builds a gallows 75-feet tall on which to hang Uncle Mordecai. Haman has also devised a plan that will allow him to kill not only Mordecai but every one of his countrymen. Haman is going to wipe out the entire Jewish race. One day the king asks Haman for advice:

“What should be done for a man the king wishes to honor?” (Esther 6:6).

Haman assumes the king plans to honor him. So he comes up with an amazing list of honors—all Haman could ever have imagined. The king says That’s a great list. Go and do all of that for Mordecai the Jew. Haman is secretly humiliated and now hates Mordecai more than ever. But he obeys the king. Then, just as Haman’s genocidal plans are about to begin, Queen Esther risks her life to expose his evil plans to the king. What happens? The king has Haman hung on the gallows he built for Mordecai the Jew, Esther 7:9.

What a perfect, simple story. The arrogant man filled with monstrous hatred is forced to bestow his own personal fantasy of honors on his worst enemy, then is hung on the world’s tallest gallows, gallows he had designed to kill that same enemy.

Why? Because he made himself an enemy of God and of God’s people. You can’t fight God. You will never win.

“Your arm’s too short to box with God!”

Dear God, remind us that there is no storyteller like you. Your word is filled with so many amazing stories, true records of the amazing way you have worked in our world and in the lives of your people. Make us better students of the word. Lead us to translations of the Bible that will help us understand your message better. Be glorified in our Bible reading and Bible study.

AΩ

God’s Calling Includes the Promise of God’s Provision. 1 Kings 17:3-4.

When God calls you, He will equip you. When God gives you a task, he will provide what you need to accomplish that task.

When God called me to law school, he gave me a promise I could cling to. I needed the reassurance so often, I prayed these words nearly every day:

“Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass” 1 Thessalonians 5:24.

When God called Elijah to pronounce a three-year drought over Israel, God also promised to provide food and water for the now-fugitive prophet, a man on the run.

“Hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan, and it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there” 1 Kings 17:3-4.

God provided meals for Elijah two times every day.

“And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening and he drank of the brook” 1 Kings 17:6.

Elijah must have found this arrangement strange, knowing scripture pronounced the unclean birds “detestable” and “abominable” Leviticus 11:13,15. Not only that, what sort of meat were these carrion birds bringing to Elijah? It wasn’t thinly sliced pastrami, we know that. It wasn’t chicken nuggets, or meatballs, or barbecued ribs.

Ravens, from which we get the word “ravenous,” are scavengers. They’ll eat anything, which often means tearing the flesh from dead animals (which were also unclean). On top of that, nearly every culture associates ravens with death and bad luck.

Again—Elijah must have found this strange, perhaps even disgusting. But when it comes to the lives of his prophets, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Elijah had no choice but to eat what God provided, and to do so in faith. The point is, God promised to provide for Elijah and he did.

Has God called you to accomplish something difficult? He promises to provide for your needs while you work toward his goals. Look at the promises of God in the Bible and ask him to help you locate a specific promise you can claim that will encourage you as you pursue his calling.

Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass 1 Thessalonians 5:24.

AΩ

Words Spoken for a Word-Lover: RICK BUSH AND THE HOUND OF HEAVEN. Psalm 139:7-8.

Pictured: Rick Bush in 2011, holding his newborn twin boys.

In June of 2001, Houston was hit by Tropical Storm Allison. Everything was flooding and destruction. No one could work. I had not seen my friend Rick in a while, so I called him and arranged lunch.

Rick and I had met in the fall of 1993 when we taught British literature to seniors at Kempner High School in Sugar Land. First impression? Rick was like an M&M: hard shell on the outside, tender on the inside. He was naturally funny, but also liked to appear mean and ornery, so I was shocked one day when my new colleague walked into the English office and began to weep, to sob really, over the horrors being experienced by a student who had just unburdened herself to him.

I discovered that Rick cared. He cared deeply. What he had hidden so well from me—from all of his coworkers—was that he had a heart of compassion. He could be a witty, irascible curmudgeon on the outside. But inside he deeply loved people, particularly his students.

Rick and I had a lot in common. We loved literature and language and words. Our conversations were amazing because Rick was an incredible listener. I might talk on some subject for twenty minutes. When I was done, it would be my turn to listen for twenty minutes as Rick would respond to everything I had said, point-by-point, in perfect order. I have never had conversations quite like that with anyone else. It was extraordinary.

Rick and I shared a classroom: he had it in the morning, while I taught elsewhere, then I had it in the afternoon, while he taught elsewhere. We saw a great deal of each other. Rick was fastidious. An obsessively neat and orderly man, the Felix Unger of the classroom. Everything on his desk was always in perfect order. The bachelor’s pantry at home was literally alphabetized. But Rick’s fertile sense of humor drew him to one odd bit of disorder: a clock. There was a clock on the cinderblock wall of our room that ran backwards. It was an analog clock, of course (the kind with hands), and Rick loved to keep it running backwards to confuse the students. But everyone knew if you unplugged it and plugged it back in, it would run forwards.

But Rick insisted we let it run backwards. We got used to it and soon I could read it at a glance. The school day would begin at the end, and run backwards all day to the beginning. And it made Rick laugh like nothing else. It was his one weird wrinkle, Rick loved the clock that ran counterclockwise.

Because we shared a classroom, I knew what sort of teacher Rick was. Our teaching styles were as different as night and day, but I often told other faculty members I hoped Rick would be available to teach my children one day. That’s how much I respected his methods as a teacher.*

Then in the mid 1990’s things began to go south for Rick. He had one health problem after another, peculiar illnesses that doctors struggled to diagnose. Car problems. Money problems. Work problems. Problems that came along in a pattern I thought I recognized.

“I think God is trying to get your attention, Rick.”

But the self-proclaimed agnostic didn’t want to hear it. Rick, the son of a career soldier, was born to a German mother and an American father. He lived in Germany until he was 13, held dual citizenship, spoke both languages fluently, and had earned a masters degree in comparative linguistics from Texas Tech (where he enjoyed a brief career as a student deejay).

He began his career teaching the German language to college students at Tech, but for reasons I have never understood, he gave that up to teach high school English. Being a good little German boy, Rick had been raised Lutheran but lost his faith somewhere along the way. He told me he was agnostic.

“It’s the Hound of Heaven, Rick. He’s on your tail.”

Rick didn’t want to hear it.

Things went on this way for eight years: Rick would tell me about a string of bizarre problems and I would always say the same thing:

“It’s the Hound of Heaven, Rick.”

“Doctors can’t figure out why I have these weird tumors in my leg.”

“It’s the Hound of Heaven, Rick.”

“As soon as I get my car running, things fall apart on the job. Then this, then that, then the other.”

“It’s the Hound of Heaven, Rick. God is trying to get your attention.”

“Every time I date a girl, this happens, that happens, and everything turns into some hopeless existentialist novel.”

“It’s the Hound of Heaven, Rick.”

(By the way, Rick is the only person to whom I have ever mentioned the Hound of Heaven! I was just certain. There was an odd pattern to the struggles in his life, and it looked like God was in it, somehow. I’ve never seen the same pattern in the life of anyone else. But in Rick’s case, I couldn’t shake the conviction. So I kept telling him that God was after him, and that he should stop running.)

Then Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston on June 11, 2001. No one would be working the next day, and I hadn’t talked to Rick in a while. So we made plans. And I had this feeling. On the morning of June 12, 2001, I told my wife:

“I think Rick is going to give his life to Christ today.”

Rick and I met at a hamburger joint on Highway 6 at Grisby. It was the hottest, humid-est day of the year. Of course, if you know Rick, you know Rick wanted to sit outside.

“But it’s so hot!”

And Rick said what he always said: “it’s not hot. It’s temperate.”

“Well, Shakespeare, it’s a pretty HIGH temperate.” But I went along with it.

We sat outside. Rick talked to me for hours. We re-visited some things we had spoken of before: job problems, people problems, health problems. Problems he could not solve—problems I certainly could not solve. Life can be hard—and Rick’s life had been one challenge after another—for eight years.

Rick was not happy. He wept.

“Steve, my entire life is a disaster. I’ve got nothing to show for it. It’s all been a colossal waste. I’ve wasted every opportunity. I’ve blown every chance I’ve had. My whole life is just a complete waste.”

He talked a long time. This was a confessional.

So I listened. And he wept and choked out his regrets and I guess we ate a little or played with our food or something. I know we perspired.

What do you say to a man who has NO HOPE?

I knew what it was like to have no hope. I KNEW HOPELESSNESS.

There is nothing you can say.

And Rick was much too smart to find comfort in easy answers.

So I said nothing.

He talked on.

Finally, after two hours, he was spent. He had said his piece.

I sat in silence. What can you say to a man who has just made an accounting of his entire life and found it worthless?

When Job’s life fell apart his friends sat with him in silence for seven days.

I didn’t have seven days.

Finally, I spoke.

“Rick. You know what I’m gonna say. It’s the HOUND OF HEAVEN. You will remain unhappy until you find your joy in HIM.”

I talked slowly. Letting the words linger. For the first time, I knew he was going to let me finish. He had stopped this conversation many times, telling me “When I’m ready to have that conversation, I want to have it with you. But I’m not ready.”

This time, I thought he was ready. I went on.

“God loves you. Jesus died for you. He can wash you clean. Make you whole. He is the REDEEMER! He can bring worth to your life. He can restore VALUE to a life that looks wasted to you right now. He’s been after you for years. It’s time to stop running. It’s time to surrender.”

And that’s what he did. Rick was thirty-four years old when he took ownership of his life, his sins, his brokenness. He OWNED all of it. He took that whole ball of brokenness and what he accounted as worthlessness, and he rolled that over to Jesus. He gave it up. He placed his whole life in the hands of Jesus. He stopped running. He stopped fighting. He surrendered. On June 12, 2001, sitting under the blazing noonday sun in Houston, Texas, Rick gave his life to Christ.

Rick SURRENDERED ALL TO JESUS. And it changed his entire life!

But the Rick I met eight years before was a skeptic. If he were sitting where you are, he would ask whether it was real—and how can you be so sure?

Here’s how you can be sure. Because Jesus changes lives. I wish I could tell you how dramatically Rick’s life changed that day. If I had a clock that ran counterclockwise back to 2001, perhaps you could see the dramatic changes that happened almost overnight. Think of it this way:

Jesus said “You will know them by their fruits” Matthew 7:20.

Rick’s life immediately began to bear fruit:

He began attending church and hardly missed a Sunday.

He was bearing fruit.

He began studying Biblical Greek so he could read the New Testament in the original language.

(Wait, what? Who does that?!)

He was bearing fruit.

After he felt competent with Greek, he began studying Hebrew. (Like that’s just something people say to themselves: I think I’ll study Hebrew now….) But he wanted to know the WORD.

He was bearing fruit.

He was trained as a soul-winner with Evangelism Explosion, and made countless visits to share the gospel with others. Now THAT is bearing fruit. What greater fruit could there be?

He was bearing fruit.

He settled into a career at Wharton County Junior College and was there 19 years—22 years if you count his years as an adjunct.

He was bearing fruit.

Rick became a writer and editor for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). I counted the SABR articles—he wrote over 115 articles. NOT TO MENTION, he edited FIVE of SABR’s books about baseball in the Negro Leagues. HE WAS PROLIFIC (an adjective every would-be writer hopes to hear attached to his name). He was prolific–and that is another way of saying:

He was bearing fruit.

He married Michelle in 2005. They were married 18 years.

Rick was bearing fruit.

Rick and Michelle had three sons and Rick raised them as a loving father for 15 years.

Rick’s life bore fruit.

The “Hound of Heaven” is a poem by Francis Thompson. It was written in 1890 and the language is challenging—so of course Rick would have loved it! Allow me to share just a few lines…

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days.

I fled Him, down the arches of the years.

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and …

I hid from Him…

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

… And a Voice beat

More … than the Feet— [and God said]

“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

The next five stanzas chronicle the difficult life of the poet, Francis Thompson, who was addicted to opium before he surrendered to the hound of heaven.

Finally, God catches up to the man—to Thompson, the writer, to Professor Bush, to me, to you—and God speaks to all of us:

Whom wilt thou find to love thee,

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harm,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

Everything you think is lost,

I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, take My hand, and come!’

The Hound of Heaven caught up to Rick Bush.

Is He chasing you?

If Rick were here today he would tell you that he found his purpose when he found his Creator. Your life will make sense when you stop running from the God who made you. Surrender. Give him control. He will redeem you and restore value and worth and purpose to your life.

And just like He did with Rick, He will make you bear fruit!

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in the depths, behold, You are there” Psalm 139:7-8.

AΩ
https://www.kleinfh.com/obituary/frederick-bush

*Ironically, one of the lessons I remember most was that Rick always asked his seniors to draft their own obituaries. While it struck me as an excellent exercise (and not at all “off-topic” considering the subject matter of much British literature), parents complained about the assignment every year. I could not shake that familiar memory when I found myself involved in preparing both a spoken eulogy and parts of a written obituary for one of my best friends who was gone too soon. This was one strange case of life imitating art, and Rick would have enjoyed a lengthy conversation teasing out the implications and laughing about the twists of fate and/or the unpredictable workings of a sovereign God. I loved him. God be with you till we meet again.

Alexander the Great and Fulfilled Prophecy. Daniel 8:21.

Most people agree there was a man known as Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem. But did you know the Bible foretold the Messiah would be born in the tiny town?

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be a ruler over Israel—one whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity” Micah 5:2.

After his visit from the magi, Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus and it was this passage the priests quoted that led him to send soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the little boys. Everyone understood that Bethlehem was the prophecied birthplace of the Messiah.

Did you know there are people today who, upon hearing this prophecy, suddenly turn into little Herods, trying to kill the baby Jesus all over again? Okay, perhaps ‘kill’ is too strong a term. They don’t want to kill him; they want to erase him. Thus, where they may once have admitted Jesus of Nazareth was a real person born in Bethlehem, suddenly they start saying he was never born in the first place.

They hear about Micah 5:2 and say things like, “How do you even know Jesus ever lived?”

We know because there is a historical record, including the writings of Josephus, a first-century Jew who was NOT a believer. Josephus reported on the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist and that Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate, and that James was the brother of Jesus. No serious student of history questions whether Jesus actually lived.

The Bible includes a fulfilled prophecy about another man who is almost as famous as Jesus. Maybe if we talked more about Daniel 8:21 we would find out how many people would start saying Alexander the Great never lived!

In Daniel’s vision, a huge ram with two horns is moving west, north, and south, and no one can stop him. Then a male goat comes from the west with a huge horn between his eyes. The goat attacked the ram in a rage and broke both the ram’s horns. Then the goat grew even stronger, but the horn between his eyes was broken, and four weaker horns replaced the single huge horn between the eyes.

The angel Gabriel came to Daniel and explained the vision.

Gabriel said the first ram with the two horns represented the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians. But those two empires and the rest of the world would soon be conquered by the charging goat from the west. What kingdom could be found to the west? Greece, the nation whose culture gave birth to what we know today as “the Western world.”

But Greece was nothing at the time of Daniel. No one could have imagined the tiny collection of loosely associated city-states (each city was its own nation) would ever grow powerful enough to conquer anyone.

But that is what Gabriel explained to Daniel:

“The rough goat is the king of Grecia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king” Daniel 8:21.

We know from history that this first king of Greece, who would rapidly conquer the Medes and the Persians, was Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great then famously died young at 32 (the breaking of the horn between the eyes). Gabriel explained that after Alexander’s death, four weaker kings would rise to take his place:

“Now that [Alexander] being broken … four kingdoms shall stand up out of that nation, but not in his power” Daniel 8:22.

History records that after Alexander’s untimely death, his kingdom was plunged into forty years of civil war, eventually settling on a four-way split, being divided among Ptolemy I (Egypt and Palestine); Seleucus (Babylonia and Syria); Lysimachus (Asia Minor); and Antipater (Macedonia and Greece).

The facts of Alexander’s life are known, easily verified, and are predicted here with stunning accuracy, more than 200 years before Alexander was born.

Around the time Daniel was writing, God gave one of his contemporaries, the prophet Zechariah, a prophecy that also speaks of Alexander the Great, though somewhat indirectly. In Zechariah 9:8 God promises to protect Jerusalem from the “marauding forces” that he will use to punish Israel’s enemies. While this passage does not mention Alexander directly, history records that it was Alexander that God used to punish each of the enemy nations discussed in Zechariah, chapter nine: Hadrak, Hamath, Tyre, Sidon, Askelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the Philistines.

The historian Josephus records details that make this passage even more interesting.

It seems Alexander had every reason to conquer Jerusalem and wipe out the people of Israel. He had just conquered Tyre, only 40 miles away, and sent couriers to Jerusalem to request supplies. But Jerusalem refused his request.

(Who says no to Alexander the Great?)

Josephus writes that Alexander came to Jerusalem and was welcomed by the people. The priests did not brace for war because they took reassurance from the words of Zechariah that the city would be protected. Meanwhile, Alexander did not attack the city because he had had a dream in which he was welcomed to the city by the very high priest who did, in fact, come out to welcome him.

Once the conqueror arrived, Josephus writes that he was shown the words of Daniel and was “deeply impressed” and believed the words to have been written about him, because he was indeed the Greek king who had conquered the Persians.[1]

God, thank you that you are sovereign over history. You rule and reign over creation, and the events of the future are as clear to you as the events of the past. Help us understand and recall the numerous fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, and may we draw confidence in our faith from that knowledge. Give us opportunities to share these amazing facts with others.

AΩ

* The words of Daniel 8 and Zechariah 9 remind me of Ben Franklin’s words: “the Lord governs in the affairs of men.” How did Alexander conquer the world? By the power of God. God willed it and God placed power and authority over those nations into the hands of Alexander–to punish Israel’s enemies, as God has often did, raising kings and kingdoms to punish each other’s great sins, a pattern repeated throughout the Old Testament. Of course, Alexander had gifts and talents and great leadership ability and military strategy. But it is God who raised him up and made him great. God used first Greece and ultimately Rome to pave the way for the gospel. The Messiah came to a world with some degree of cultural unity (in the Hellenistic culture of Greece), that was unified by the huge government of the Roman Empire, with peace (the famous “pax romana”), a highway system, and many other things that contributed to the extraordinary growth of the early church.

[1] https://christiancourier.com/articles/alexander-the-great-an-amazing-example-of-prophecy-and-providence

God is Patient, but He Will Judge the Guilty. Joel 3:18.

British comedian Stephen Fry was asked what he would say to God.

“Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain? It’s utterly, utterly evil. Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? God is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac.”

The interviewer then asked Fry about the wonders of creation. Fry responded, “Yes, the world is very splendid but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. Why? Why did you do that to us? It is perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living.”

When I ran across this passage online, I said nothing, exercising patience, as God does thousands of times a day. (I often enter these “discussions,” but only if I know the person who drafted the original post. In my experience, little good comes from online arguments with strangers.)

But I was tempted to enter the fray, to argue first of all, that it is we who sinned, not God. That when mankind sinned, creation fell. There were no eyeball-eating parasites before the fall of creation. Illness and death were not God’s original design. We live in a beautiful, but fallen world, surrounded by beautiful people, some of whom are monsters of incalculable evil. But God remains holy. He loves us, and he extends mercy and grace to us even in our sin. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8.

In fact, it is not the unforgiven who should be bringing charges against God, but it is God who will bring charges against the unforgiven.

One day God will assemble all the nations, all the men and women from all ages of humanity and charge them with their own monstrous crimes: kidnapping children, selling people into slavery, robbing God’s temples, and all the rest.

“I will gather all the nations, and will bring them down into the valley … and plead with them for my people, my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations … They have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink … Ye have taken my silver and gold and have carried into your temples my finest things … The children of Judah and Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians” Joel 3:2-6.

Then God addresses those who seem bent on fighting him. Perhaps Stephen Fry would appreciate this invitation:

“Proclaim this among the Gentiles: Prepare for war … Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say I am strong. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen … Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about … Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision … The sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord shall also roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem” Joel 3:9-16.

God is holy. God will judge the evil among us. And the chapter ends with hope: God will bless his people. There is always grace and hope.

“The mountains shall drip down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord” Joel 3:18.

God who is holy and kind and good and merciful and forgiving is also the God who will judge evil. Then he will restore creation to the beauty it had before the fall. And the mountains will drip new wine, the hills flow with milk, and the rivers will flow with water from the fountain of the Lord.

Dear God, help us to understand your patience. We see evil around us every day. Give us wisdom to understand your sovereignty over sickness and death and your love that allows so many among us to continue to make bad choices. Thank you for your patience—that you are reluctant to judge evil, while we are always in a hurry to see our enemies suffer. Help us to see people through your eyes of holiness, kindness, patience, and forgiveness.

AΩ

His Desire is Toward Me. Song of Solomon 7:10.

I saw an interesting video from a Ring doorbell. An older British man knocked on a door and fussed at his young British neighbor who answered:

“I have a complaint for you. You have caused me a great deal of trouble.”

“Ay, how’s that?”

“You sent flowers to my wife.”

“Right, because I knew she had just come off hospital.”

“Right. I know she just come off hospital. She is my wife, after all. But I never buy her flowers, do you understand? Now you’ve caused me a great deal of grief, sending my wife flowers and all like that.”

“How’s that then?”

“My wife. I’ve never bought her flowers. Don’t buy her flowers or chocolates or presents or jewelry or none like that. And I’ve got her used to it. And here you go buying her flowers for coming off hospital. And now she’s saying, wouldn’t it be nice if I were to buy her flowers now and again. Now come on. You’ve got no right to be sending me wife flowers!”

“I was only wishing her well, you see.”

“Yes, I see. But you’ve got no right. You should have come to me first. You need to be running them flowers through me. Because now you’ve got my wife dreaming of me buying her flowers and things. Next time, you need to leave well enough alone.”

This old bloke is clearly not a romantic. In fact, he sounds selfish. He never buys her anything? I admit that there is a continuum: some men shower their ladies with flowers and gifts year-round. Others do as little as possible, as seldom as possible. But never? Never, EVER?

I won’t argue there is a Biblical mandate. But if the Song of Solomon is a guide, all of us—men and women both—could probably do better, not only at gift-giving, but more importantly, at speaking simple words of affirmation. Do we affirm the people we love? Do we do it regularly?

Consider the way the groom treats his bride. What an exercise in words of affirmation:

“How beautiful are thy feet … Thy [knees] are like jewels … Thy navel is like … Thy belly is like … Thy two breasts are like … Thy neck is as … Thine eyes are like … Thy nose is as … Thine head upon thee is like … and the hair of thine head is like … How fair and pleasant are thou, O love, for delights! Thy stature is like to a … and thy breasts to …” Song of Solomon 7:1-7.

What a conversation. It is so simple. The man just starts at her feet and praises her beauty all up and down her body. It is simple, but you can imagine how much it means to his bride. And the result is that she is confident in his love. Her answer?

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me” Song of Solomon 7:10.

She is confident in his love because he makes an effort to put it into words. And he does so regularly.

Are you confident in God’s love for you? If not, give the Lord a chance to affirm you. How? By spending more time reading his love letter to you. Spend time in the word and eventually you will be able to say about God: “I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me.”

AΩ

Make a Pros and Cons List (What Could be More Romantic?) 😉. S.O.S. 6:8-9.

One tool that can help with decision-making is a list of pros and cons. If you were considering a job offer, you might make such a list. The left side of the page would be labeled “Pros” and the right side “Cons.” In the Pros column, you list all the reasons to take the job: pay increase, shorter commute, better hours, better work-life balance, etc. In the Cons column, you list all the reasons for turning down the job: must learn new set of skills, job is not the field of work I have always dreamed about, lack of job security, etc.

The key to a Pros and Cons list is not that you fill one side with twenty points and the other with nineteen, then choose the column with twenty. After all, one major point may be more compelling than twenty minor points. This is not a magical process or a black-and-white, binary exercise. Instead, drafting the list forces you to think through many issues you may not have considered, so that by the time you have completed the list, you are closer to making your decision.

I once made a Pros and Cons List that involved dating. In the fall of 1985, I suddenly went from no options to more than one option. So I made a Pros and Cons List. Boys in high school are not known for the exercise of good judgment, and I was not particularly discerning. But I was at least aware that there was more to the mysterious opposite sex than looks. Do we communicate well? Do we have fun together? Does she live close enough for me to drive to her house in a reasonable amount of time? Does she love the Lord? Yes, believe it or not, I actually considered that last one. I was trying to grow in my faith and I figured any girl I was going to date better be doing the same.

Last night, for Valentine’s Day nearly forty years later, I bought a bouquet of flowers for one of the girls on that Pros and Cons List.

I married her—eight years after she rose to the top of my Pros and Cons List. As I worked through the list, I remember realizing no one loved the Lord like she did. It was so obvious. And that realization has stayed with me for decades. Even in 1985, I would have told you she was not right about everything, and that she had a (mostly harmless) streak of stubborn rebellion. But this girl wanted to do the right thing more than anyone I had ever met. She was determined to live for Christ. I knew it was real, and nothing was more important to me.

I like these words from Solomon:

“There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number, but my dove, my undefiled is but one. She is the only one …” Song of Solomon 6:8-9.

The Message puts it this way:

“There’s no one like her on earth, never has been, never will be. She’s a woman beyond compare. My dove is perfection, pure and innocent as the day she was born.”

Other versions say, she is unique, and there is no one like her, and she is the only one for me. I still feel that way—I have met so few like her.

What a blessing to rest in that, to know that your spouse loves Jesus more than you. That your spouse seeks to please Jesus. That your spouse will forgive you, serve you, and bless you over and over for decades not because she loves you (or because you deserve it) but because she loves Jesus and wants to please him.

I think of that Pros and Cons List and others like it every now and then. No job is perfect. No house or auto purchase will please you completely. Everything on this earth is flawed. But a spouse who loves Jesus must be about as close to perfection as you will ever get. May we always be grateful for the amazing servants of Christ who live among us and enrich our lives every day!

“A wife of noble character, who can find” Proverbs 31:10.

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The Fork in the Road is Three-Pronged. 2 Kings 22:2.

You always have three options. There is Jeroboam’s path, Rehoboam’s path, and Josiah’s path.

Jeroboam was the first king of the Northern Kingdom. He worried his people would desert him and return to Rehoboam (Solomon’s son who was now king only of Judah). To keep his people loyal to him, Jeroboam built idols and altars, one up north in Dan and another down south in Bethel. His plan worked—Israel began to worship Jeroboam’s golden calves, 1 Kings 12:25-31. Jeroboam got rid of the Levitical priests and ordained his own priests. “He ordained him priests for the high places, for the devils, and for the calves which he had made” 2 Chronicles 11:15.

God punished Jeroboam. One prophet came to foretell the doom of Jeroboam and all his descendants, 1 Kings 14:6-16. Another prophet came to speak destruction over Jeroboam’s pagan altar, an event that would not happen for 300 years:

“O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee” 1 Kings 13:2.

This meant the absolute end of Jeroboam’s altars, because even idol worshippers considered the presence of a dead body a desecration from which there was no recovery.

Jeroboam chose the path of evil.

King Rehoboam lost eleven tribes of the kingdom due to the sin of his father Solomon, as foretold in 1 Kings 11:11-13. But Rehoboam held onto the territory and people of his own tribe, Judah, and he welcomed the return of the Levitical priests. Sacrifices and worship continued at Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Rehoboam tried to follow the Lord, more or less. But Rehoboam used bad judgment: he listened to the foolish advice of his young counselors, he tolerated idolatry, he married foreign (idol worshipping) wives, and more. King Rehoboam negotiated with evil, made deals with evil, and compromised.

“And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord,” 2 Chronicles 12:14.

Rehoboam chose the path of compromise.

King Josiah became king at the age of eight, and “began to seek after the God of David” in the eighth year of his reign, 2 Chronicles 34:3. At 16, Josiah did what Rehoboam did not, he “prepared his heart to seek the Lord.” Soon he was fulfilling prophecy: “He burnt the bones of the [pagan] priests upon the altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem … and [soon] he had broken down the altars … and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel” 2 Chronicles 34:5,7.

“And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left” 2 Kings 22:2.

Josiah chose the path of obedience and faithfulness to God.

The fork in the road before you presents three paths: Which will you choose?

(1) Jeroboam’s path of evil,

(2) Rehoboam’s path of compromise, or

(3) Josiah’s path of one who “prepared his heart to seek the Lord”?

Search our hearts, God. Show us what you find there. Are we lukewarm? Do we compromise with the evil around us? Make us more like Josiah. Help us to hate evil and to fight for what is right. May we strive every day to be holy as you are holy, 1 Peter 1:16.

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Respect Your Elders. 2 Chronicles 10:7.

The Bible contains a few things so vulgar you may never hear them in a sermon. This is one of them. And yes, I have misgivings writing about it.

After Solomon’s son Rehoboam became king, the people of Israel came to him complaining Solomon had worked them too hard. They had built the temple, the palace, and an extensive collection of vineyards, gardens, orchards, horse farms and cattle farms, silver and gold mines, and more as described in Ecclesiastes 2. They told Rehoboam that if he would only ease the burden they would serve him. Rehoboam told the people to return in three days for his answer.

First, the young king asked the older counselors for their advice. They told him to be kind to the people and “and speak good words to them” and they would serve him forever, 2 Chronicles 10:7.

Then, Rehoboam asked a group of younger counselors for their advice. He “took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him,” and immediately the conversation became vulgar. Rather than encouraging Rehoboam to “speak good words,” his young friends said this:

“Say unto them, ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will put more to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions!’” 2 Chronicles 10:10-11.

Imagine giving such advice to a king. Only the buddies he grew up with would dare to say such a thing:

Yeah, tell them your little finger is bigger than your father’s ______! Say, ‘I’ll be a bigger ____ than he was!’

I can imagine the hand gestures and facial expressions that went along with this conversation. Rehoboam’s high-school buddies and college frat bros had suddenly made it to the king’s palace and they were enjoying themselves.

But being king is a serious business. And this is where Rehoboam made a mistake. He listened to his foolish friends. When the nation returned to him on the third day, he said the wrong thing. Though Rehoboam had the discretion not to discuss the thickness of his father’s loins, the young king insulted the people nevertheless:

“My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” 2 Chronicles 10:14.

Immediately, the nation deserted Rehoboam, complaining “What portion do we have in David? What inheritance do we have in the son of Jesse? Every man to your own tents, O Israel!” 2 Chronicles 10:16. When Rehoboam insulted the people, he lost control of them. Quickly eleven tribes lined up in support of a new king, Jeroboam, and only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to King Rehoboam. In other words, Rehoboam’s insulting words about beating the people with scorpions cost him almost his entire kingdom. Why? Because Rehoboam listened to foolish counselors.  

He was wise to take his questions to counselors. But when his counselors did not agree, to whom should he have listened? He should have listened to those with the most wisdom.

How do you know who has the most wisdom? As a general rule, those with the most experience have the most wisdom. They have the benefit of decades watching decisions being made and decades seeing the long-term results of those decisions. Younger counselors may have a sense of the pulse or mood of the people. But set against the wisdom of elders, that may not be worth much.

And by the way, were the older counselors better men than the “frat bros” Rehoboam grew up with? Not necessarily. They may have laughed at the comments about Solomon’s loins, even if they would never have said them. Older men can be shockingly foul-mouthed. They have heard it all, and have often grown quite desensitized. It’s not that the older men were better men or less vulgar or more moral or ethical.

The key is that for whatever reason, the elders had the wisdom to recognize that the situation called for kindness.

Where the young men told the king to “answer roughly,” the old men told him to “speak good words.” The old men gave wise advice. But Rehoboam listened to his young friends and spoke roughly.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” Proverbs 15:1.

“With the ancient is wisdom, and with length of days comes understanding” Job 12:12.

Dear Lord, teach us to speak kindly, to give a gentle answer. Show us to whom we should listen. Draw us to the wisdom of the aged. May we honor those who offer us the hard-won wisdom of experience. Please give us more wisdom every day.

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Dating Your Friend. SOS 5:16.

As college students, my wife and I broke up once for about a year. When we dated the second time, everything was different. The first two years had been fun but serious, a sort of heavy romance characterized by two things: (1) an effort to seek God together (we prayed on every date, having been prayer partners before we dated) and (2) an effort to avoid the risks lust could place in the path of young Christians years away from marriage. These were worthy goals and established a good foundation.

But after some time apart, we came back together with a different mindset. We still valued those goals, but things were just more fun. We laughed more. We did not take ourselves as seriously. But one day I said something Wendy did not like:

“Hey, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal.”

“I’m not your buddy.”

We eventually reached an understanding. If two people are in love, they should also be FRIENDS. There is a notion that romance exists on some higher plane, that it must be formal or serious, somehow. Think of romantic movies and popular songs. Singers, writers, and movie directors perpetuate the idea that romance is all high drama. That love must be earth-shaking. That the two of you are the prince and princess of the universe and all of creation is holding its breath to watch your story, the most moving, romantic epic there has ever been or ever will be. That’s heavy.

That’s heavy—and it’s also pretty ridiculous. Ask anyone who has been married a few years. It does not take long to discover that marriage, while providing amazing highs and lows, is often pretty routine and ordinary. It’s taking out the trash, cleaning up after each other. Serving each other. Seeing each other in the throws of some horrible illness. Squabbling about the stupidest things. But also laughing about the silliest things. It is laughter, endless laughter. Laughter every day. And conversations. Not just conversations about each other and dreams and hopes for the future and romance, but conversations about news and politics and new curtains and the inside joke that only the two of you will understand.

In other words, love and marriage is another form of FRIENDSHIP. You two are friends. You are more than that, yes. But everything that comes later should be built on a foundation of friendship. On some level, you really are buddies. Pals.

After a dozen lines praising the man’s beauty, the bride in the Song of Solomon says, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” Song of Solomon 5:16.

May those  beloved to you—whether your beloved spouse, your beloved parents or your beloved children—may your beloved also be your friend. Don’t get so caught up in the weight of relationships that you miss the chance to have lighthearted fun. Relationships should be fun. Family should be fun. Laugh more!

God, teach us to love you as your bride, but also to relate to you as a friend. Show us what that means, just as you called Abraham your friend in Isaiah 41:8.

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