On the Way to Wonder

1 Samuel 14

Saul was the first king of Israel but not only was he flawed by his insecurities especially with respect to David but was also crippled by a need to impress people.  Saul often made poor decisions when under pressure.  In chapter 14 Saul is sitting under a pomegranate tree with his six hundred soldiers.  His son, Jonathan, close friend of David, leaves the group with his armor bearer and decides to challenge the Philistines single-handed.  He tells his bearer that the sign of God’s favor would be if the soldiers invite them to engage in battle.  He reasons, “Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few (v.6).”  Some of David’s friendship and confidence had rubbed off on him, I think!

      Saul seeing the Philistines fleeing makes his men swear to not eat anything until the enemy is defeated.   Jonathan joins the army that is exhausted and learns of his father’s oath.  The forest is full of honey in trees.  He realizes his father has made a very unwise demand of his men.  At the end of the day, Saul finally decides to consult God about continuing the battle the next day but God is silent.  Saul realizes something is wrong and swears to kill the offender.  The offender is Jonathan, his son, heir apparent, who has unwittingly eaten honey.  The men defend Jonathan.  A legend of victory turns into a mix-up of oaths not followed and a decision to go home.

     The presence of mighty trees, of God’s leading, and of group consensus does not a victory make.  We can in our rash haste to please God and people, err.  Saul withdraws from chasing the Philistines.  What might have happened had Saul consulted God first rather than last, we will never know.  Swahili has a saying we were taught when we first went to language school.  “Haraka, haraka, hakuna Baraka” Hurry, hurry has no blessing.  We might say, “Haste makes waste.”  Waiting on God’s timing is not easy, especially in our instant this or that culture. 

         Perhaps there is an answer to prayer that you have been praying for a long time.  Believing that God can lead whether by few or by many allows us to seek God’s ways and God’s timing.  We need strength for his battles.  Blessings as you wait on the Lord.

1 Samuel 31:12-13, Genesis 21:33

Saul was the first king for the Israelites.  He was tall, dark and handsome and the people wanted a king like the other tribes around them.  There are many stories about Saul and as we saw in the David and Goliath story, Saul was flawed.  David with his sling defeated Goliath and “stole” the hearts of the people.  Saul thought he saw the writing on the wall and that David would steal the kingship.  Thus began a crack in Saul’s leadership. Saul eventually dies on the battle field with his sons and with David in exile.  Brave men rescue his body.

            ¹² all the valiant men set out, travelled all night long, and took the      body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan.   They came to Jabesh and burned them there. ¹³ Then they took their         bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted        for seven days.

         I pondered why they buried them under a tamarisk tree.  The tamarisk tree is a significant tree in Jewish history, I discovered.  It is symbolic of the covenant between Abraham and God.  Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba.  Abraham had moved from his home country in Ur, had sired Ismael by Sarah’s maid Hagar, had Isaac by Sarah and was settling the land with the Philistines that lived there.  After a dispute with a chief over a well, Abraham made peace by giving seven ewe lambs to confirm he had built the well and there would not be fighting.  “Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Eternal God. (Gen. 21:33)”  The tamarisk tree was like a symbol of Abraham starting to worship God publicly.

         When my second son graduated from high school in Kenya, he went and planted a tree in the woods near his school.  It testified to this time of his life.  When his older brother bought a house, he gifted them with a tree that has grown into a large statement of their commitment to each other.  Perhaps you don’t plant trees to memorialize significant moments in your life and perhaps like me, you do not even know what a tamarisk tree looks like.  But we do other things to honor important events and we find ways to make physical the commitments we make to each other and God.  One of our most common symbols is a wedding ring.

         Let us take a moment or two to think about how a tree could be a monument to our relationship with God and with others.  We may bury our dead near a tree but we also bury our sins “at the foot of the cross” Blessings as you thank God for your relationship and for friends.

by Judson W. Van DeVenter, 1896

The hymn I am thinking on for this Saturday was written by an American teacher of art turned musician and evangelist in the late 1800s.  Like many of the people we have been looking at in the Old Testament who stood under trees and pondered their lives or who used pieces of trees like sticks or pegs, Van DeVenter had to make a decision about the direction of his life.  Would he become an artist or would be an evangelist?  I’m sure Ruth had a moment of truth as she decided to follow Naomi.  Barak had a moment of truth when challenged by Deborah to raise an army.  Jael had to decide when Sisera fled to her tent.  Many of us had to decide how respond as hurricane Ian approached Florida this week.  Those decisions had deep implications as it did for Van DeVenter.  May we enjoy this classic hymn and know that when we surrender to God’s will, it may not be obvious what the outcome is but he is there beside us.  Blessings in your decisions to surrender!

Ruth 3

“Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.”

My friends and I sat rejoicing at the return of electricity after Hurricane Ian last night and discussing trees in the Bible.  Downed trees, branches, and “stuff” are a big point of interest as we look out on our yards!  We barely missed the eye of the storm but experienced blackout and wind impact.  As we chatted, I realized I had skipped one of my favorite “tree stories” as we have been ambling through the forests in the Bible, Ruth.

     Ruth, the Moabitis, a non-Jew, marries into the family of Naomi who had moved to her country because of a famine.  All the men die and Ruth decides to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem to jump-start life again after the all the chaos.  In the face of starvation, Ruth gleans in the fields of Boaz who is actually a “kinsman redeemer” in the Jewish system, that is a potential marriage.  Naomi advises Ruth to wash, dress, and go to the threshing floor at night and lay at Boaz’s feet and offer to have him put the corner of his blanket over her.  My husband, along with many, think it may have been a steamy sexual offer.  I feel it was a culturally appropriate way to express availability for marriage in those days.  Ruth had no future as a widow and foreigner.  She was one of those ordinary people God seems to delight in using.

         Threshing involved the people taking long sticks and beating the grain till it let broke away from the stalk of the barley and the hull cracked, releasing the grain.  Then the grains would be tossed in the air to blow away the chaff.  We did it in Kenya.  It seems to me that often we go through threshing experiences that beat us up.  A hurricane can be one of those times when we hold our belongings lightly and “hunker down” praying the worst will not happen.  We feel threshed and winnowed as we are tossed in the air and the chaff of our life is blown away. 

         Electricity went off Tuesday night so Wednesday morning we had no communication and my aging friend and I convinced ourselves we did not need that morning cup of coffee and pulled out the weather radio to try and figure out how it worked.  We replaced batteries, turned buttons and generally had to laugh at ourselves and seeming incompetence.  Likewise, Ruth and Naomi had gone through traumas that threshed and winnowed their lives.  At one point Naomi says to old friends in Bethlehem who welcomed her return, “Don’t call me Naomi that means “sweet” but call me Mara that means “bitter.”

     Perhaps today you feel like you have been threshed, beaten with the sticks of life.  Or perhaps you feel like you are being winnowed, tossed in the air and floundering.  Ruth becomes the mother of Obed by Boaz.  Obed is the grandfather of King David.  Ruth is listed in the genealogy.  God sees, God knows, and God’s plans to bless even if we feel threshed with sticks.  Blessings on the rough spots in your life today and as you recover from your storms.

1 Samuel 17

“Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?”

One of our favorite childhood stories is the story of the encounter between David and Goliath.  The Israelites tire of the ups and downs of communicating with God through judges.  They demand a king and Saul is anointed.  Saul goes to battle with the Philistines who have a seven foot giant Goliath who challenges to fight a one on one with any Israelite to determine who serves who.  David, then a shepherd boy, comes to the battle to bring food to his soldier brothers, hears the bellowing challenge of Goliath and engages with his sling, the defense device possibly made of the Y of a branch.  Goliath is insulted at being attacked by a boy.  David wins with his sticks!

⁴⁵ But David said to the Philistine,

‘You come to me with sword and spear and javelin;

but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts,

the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

David knew that it was not the sticks that were winning his battle.  The sticks, the pieces of the tree, were only as effective because the God who made the tree grow and who had protected his life as he guarded his father’s sheep from lions and bears was with him.

         We are taught the rhyme, “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me” as children.  But we know words hurt.  We know God’s word is only as good as his strength behind it.  Think of a verse that strengthens you today and meditate on it and thank God for his faithfulness that backs that word.

Judges 6,7

Following Judge Deborah came Judge Gideon.  After God delivered the Israelites from the Canaanites to their West using Deborah, Barak and Jael, the Israelites did evil and the Midianites from their East side oppressed them.  An angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak tree of Ophrah near where Gideon was threshing wheat secretly in a wine press.  He greeted Gideon as a “mighty warrior”.  Gideon was flabbergasted, “¹⁵ He responded, ‘But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’” He was a nobody secretly threshing wheat!  God uses nobodys like us!

         Gideon secretly pulled down the idols to Baal that night.  The town objected.  Gideon has become famous, not because of the oak tree but because in his doubt he checked to make sure he was listening to God.  He asked God to confirm that he was revealing a plan to him.  Gideon used a “fleece.”  Would God allow a real fleece laid out over night to be wet in the morning and the ground to be dry.  So it was.  Gideon realized that was actually possible so returned to God and asked that the fleece be dry and the ground wet!  And so it happened.  The story of deliverance is another miracle story but Gideon has become synonymous for “laying out a fleece” to confirm God’s will.

         My husband and I were debating where to build a village house among the people in the famine relief camp we were working at.  We prayed that God would make it clear as we were divided, by having someone invite us.  The next day as I walked through the camp a woman came up to me and said, “When are you going to build a house here?”  No “hi” or “hello”, just the words I had prayed.  Another time we prayed that the God would speak through our pediatrician we would come down country to see for our son who was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.  We walked into our jovial pediatrician’s office and he looked up from his desk and said point blank, “I have only one word to say to you.  You need to move to Nairobi to be near medial help for your son!”

         The angel chose to sit under the oak tree of Orphah to speak to Gideon.  Gideon made sure that he was hearing God’s will.  Many of have used “fleeces,” ways we confirm we are hearing from the Lord.  We may double check with Scripture and Bible study.  We may seek the advice of friends.  Think of a time when you have needed leading and how you confirmed your decision.  Perhaps you did not meet with God under an oak tree but for sure God is ready to meet with us and help us sort out our doubts.  Let’s thank him today that he is the God who speaks with us and confirms his will!

Judges 4

God spoke to Deborah when she sat under the tree and the Israelites came to her to settle their disputes.  God gave Deborah a plan for defeating the Canaanites who were oppressing her people but she was not a solo act.  She called Barak and had him gather 10,000 men whom God used to defeat Jabin’s army led by Sisera with his “900 chariots fitted with iron” plus his marching soldiers.  When Barak was winning, Sisera fled and hid in the tent of Jael, a housewife.  She gave him milk to drink and covered him so he could rest and as he slept she took a tent peg and drove it through his temple.  Sisera was not killed by a tree nor in battle but by a piece of a tree in the hands of an ordinary woman.

         The victory was won and history changed by a woman who listened to God while sitting under a tree and by a woman who looked at what she had in her hand, a tent peg, a piece of a tree, and used it to free an oppressed people.  I think that often we think we need some great platform or miracle to show God’s power but God seems to like to work with people who are willing to sit and listen and bring their problems to him.  He uses ordinary women like Jael who saw the potential for good in the tool in her hand.

         So today as we ponder the challenges facing us, may we take time to listen for the voice of God.  May we be humble and realize the team of people who support us.  And may we be aware of the tools we have in our hands to help.  Maybe it is smile, or a lift in a car, or a word of encouragement but God is willing to use each of us to help someone who is struggling.  Blessings!

Judges 4

Fast forward from Moses; through the leadership of Joshua while entering the Promised Land, to a period we call the Judges.  The children of Israel were faithful to their God, Jehovah, but then would lapse into sin and syncretism with other local religions.  God would punish them and they would repent so God would send a “judge” or leader who spoke in God’s name and rescue the people but when the judge died, the people would lapse back into “doing what seemed right in their own eyes.”  The book of Judges talks about these leaders and the conflicts of settling the Promised Land.

         Deborah, a wife and prophet, was one of those leaders.  She “held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.”  How interesting.  We do not settle our disputes under trees but in courts that look official.  Later we will see Boaz settling the marriage to Ruth at the city gate where elders met.  But for now the elders sit under a tree and they acknowledge the wisdom of a woman as a God appointed leader.

         It is here that God speaks to Deborah about delivering the Israelites from Jabin, king of Canaan, whose army leader was Sisera.  Many like this story for it portrays strong, God chosen female leaders … but we are pondering trees.  Trees are like silent, impartial witnesses.  We carve the initials of our loved one in their bark.  We hang swings from their limbs.  In the United States we have the story of the “Liberty Tree” that stood in Boston and was the rallying point for colonialists to protest the Stamp Act imposed by the British in 1765.  The tree marked the start of the struggle that led to the Revolutionary War and American Independence.  Deborah’s tree marks the start of the struggle for independence of the Israelites.

         Perhaps you do not sit under a tree to sort your struggles out and seek God’s will.  Perhaps you have “your chair” where you go to talk to God.  Maybe you journal.  I have been known to get in my car and drive or swim laps.  We each have ways we handle our disputes, the struggles we are involved with.  Violence is a decision that starts “under a tree” as we meditate on our wrongs.  It is seldom a helpful solution – but perhaps sometimes necessary.  Yes, we live in a fallen world.  So what is your tree?  Where do you turn when you feel cornered?  The important part is not the tree but the search for God’s way in the situation you are involved in. 

         As you ponder the conflicts you are caught in today, may you find a “tree” to seek advice and God’s will.  Blessings.

This week we looked at various ways Moses used his staff to follow God’s orders.  He raised it over Egypt for the plagues.  He raised it over the Red Sea and it parted.  He raised it to bring water from rocks for the people in the desert.  The stick, a piece of a tree, was not magical.  It has become a symbol of Moses trusting God’s promises and instructions to him and moving forward.  I thought of this old hymn written by Jean Sophia Pigott in 1876 in Ireland.  It reminds me of the quiet times we spend in the morning, perhaps resting under a tree to contemplate our relationship with God, perhaps resting in our favorite arm-chair to pray, or perhaps like Moses, walking in a desert when we see a bush that does not become consumed.  We take a few moments to reflect on God and listen for his voice. We place our trust in God and find a deeper peace.  The story goes that Hudson Taylor during the Boxer Rebellion in China upon hearing of missionary stations being destroyed and missionaries being martyred, sat at his desk and sang this hymn over and over to comfort his soul.  I pray as you listen you will be comforted on your journey today.

Numbers 13, 14

Before we leave Moses, I would like to ponder one more story.  Moses was told by God to send some men to explore the land of Canaan that God was going to give to the Israelites.  Moses chose 12 men, one being Joshua who became the leader after Moses and another being Caleb.  These twelve men went forth to explore.  “When they reached the Valley of Eshkol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two men carried the cluster on a pole between them.”  That was a huge cluster of grapes! A branch of a vine produces such a great blessing that it took two men to shoulder and carry.  Wow.  The blessing from the promises of God are that proportionally bigger than the bush that was not consumed, the staff that became a snake, that was held out over the Red Sea, that hit the rocks and that was the means of symbolizing God’s blessing as Moses obeyed.  Blessings are so much bigger than we can imagine! 

         God asks, “What’s that in your hand, Moses.”  What is in your hand, Reader?  It may only look like a tree or even part of a tree but when combined with the promises of God, it becomes a blessing that needs two people to carry.  12 spies returned with that cluster of grapes hanging from a vine but of those 10 could only focus on the size of the challenge they were going to face.  They became “grasshoppers” in their own eyes.  Two, Joshua and Caleb, focused on God’s blessing and begged the people to trust God.  The people grumbled yet one more time.  Consequently everyone over age 20 died in the wilderness and never saw the Promised Land.  The people wandered 40 years more.

     The life of Moses challenges me to consider if I focus on the trees and branches in my life to bring me blessings or if I focus on the seeming impossible situations facing me and then grumble rather than turning to God.  Lord, help me never to grumble about your ways and help me wait for the blessings.