Barber shop

I am not a professional hair cutter.  In fact, I don't think that it's even proper grammar to call one's self a hair cutter.  Barber?  Stylist?  Cosmetologist?  I have no idea.  However, I do cut my dad's hair, and my brother's.  My dad needed a haircut about two weeks ago, which I happily administered, and my brother decided on Monday that he needed one, too.  Legit.  He totally did.

So I cut his hair, and then gave my mom a trim, and then I cut my own bangs (sadly, nobody in my house is a hair cutter).  Three heads of hair in an evening.  Nice.  The following day my sister showed up from out of town and I cut her hair, too, and then my aunt came over and I cut her hair as well.

An awful picture of me attempting a haircut



It made me laugh to realize I'd cut so much hair in such a short amount of time.  Five heads?  For a girl who really doesn't have much experience with the cutting of hair?  Anyhow, everyone seemed marginally happy when all was said and done, so I was thinking maybe I'd open up a hair salon or something!  Just kidding.



Anyhow, as I was looking in my trashcan full of hair, I wouldn't help but consider Absalom.  I mean, seriously, what was he doing with all that hair?  HOW DID IT GROW SO FAST?  I could donate to Locks of Love all the time with hair like that!  Sigh.



I wonder

Do you ever get really curious about things while reading the Bible?  Because sometimes when I read, and especially the Old Testament when the stuff that happens is mostly drama-full (I'm in 2 Thessalonians right now, and as much as I love Paul's stuff, it doesn't have quite the same flavor as in the time of the Kings and such), I have questions that aren't important, but that I'm looking forward to having answered in Heaven one day.

For instance, does anyone else wonder what happened to Goliath's sword?  In 1 Samuel 21:9 it was given to David to protect against Saul (again) and we know the results of that: Saul had the priests killed.  But what happened to it after that?  One might assume that a weapon of such size might be slightly difficult to conceal.  But (as far as I remember, anyhow) it's not mentioned again in the Bible, leading one to assume that it just disappeared somewhere.  Maybe beaten into a plowshare at some point or something, haha.  But it's always been curious to me.

Speaking of, in the next chapter it talks about David going to the King of Moab to help hide his parents.  All good and well, we know David did a lot of weird things to prevent being killed off by Saul, but when he went to Moab was it with a specific purpose?  Because when you hark back to the story of Ruth and Boaz, you see that Jesse was actually their grandson, making David a great-grandson to a Maobitess.  But that's what I wonder:  did the king of Moab know that when David brought Jesse and the Mrs. to him for protection?  Did he partially do it because they were kind of related to his country?  Or did he just like the whole political intrigue of hiding high-profile parents?  

Those are just two examples.

I totally can't wait for Heaven.

The Waiting Game

We play many games. Twister. Dating. Monopoly. Some games we like (Guess Who?, Scrabble, Bejeweled) and some we don't (... Monopoly and dating are two that come immediately to mind). And a lot of parts of life we refer to as games that probably aren't (for instance, dating. Not really a game. I just get tired of what I call "the dating game" amongst youngsters who treat it carelessly, hence the less-than-fuzzy feelings I'm feeling towards it right now), like, for instance, waiting.

We all wait for this or that. Some people wait for the mail, some people wait for a kind word, some wait for a grandchild, and some wait for the eyebrows to grow back. All kinds of things. But I was thinking about waiting last night, as I was listening to Air1 (they have some crazy songs, but I like them mostly). They played a song called "For Those Who Wait" and it's by a band called Fireflight. Now, I'm not wholly certain what the song is about (though it did have words about a "waiting game" which is why I'm suddenly calling waiting a game), but I think it mostly has to do with waiting on the Lord. I think. I don't know. I was driving, and sometimes I pay attention to the road instead of the music. Weird, I know.

Anyhow, the bridge of the song went along the lines of "the pressures make us stronger, the lessons make the difference, the struggle makes us hunger." Something. I guess I could look up the lyrics. No, I'm feeling lazy.

As much as we don't want to wait, it's so helpful for us to wait. And there are so many helpful, and healthy things we can do while waiting (again, this waiting is for anything, be it the pizza delivery guy, that upcoming concert, or for your passport to come). And I think that's the way it was designed to be.

Do you remember the story where Saul was waiting for Samuel to come, but he didn't show up for a whole week, so Saul just sort of up and did some sacrifices, and then when Samuel came (like five minutes later, of course), he confronted Saul about he'd stepped out of bounds and done the sacrifices himself. Well, Saul's answer was that he felt obliged to for a bunch of reasons (the bad guys would get him, the people were scattering), so he just did it.

Please note, I am not an exact translation. Thank you.

So anyhow, Saul just didn't want to wait. So he didn't. And I don't blame him, in a certain sense. I mean, how many of us would just wait patiently for an entire week?! If someone says they'll be at the bus station on Friday, I'm not just going to sit around and wait for him for a whole week, you know? I'd be those people, scattering, and I'd probably be Saul, just taking charge and doing the sacrifices for lack of someone better to do them.

Woe is me. What a terrible attitude! They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, they shall walk, and not faint.

If you want a list of verses about waiting, see Mrs. B's blog for a very good post on the subject.

There's another song (I'm really into this song thing today, hope that doesn't bother anybody) by John Waller called "While I'm Waiting" and it was used in the Fireproof soundtrack (great movie, great soundtrack) and I love listening to it. It just brings to mind that while we're waiting, we should be hopeful, and serving, and patient. "I'm waiting on you, Lord, though it is painful, I will wait."

That's the sort of attitude with which I want to wait.

Obey

A few weeks ago my family was having a picnic and I had my parents give us kids some "life advice." I just figured that it would be interesting to hear specifics; we see how they live, but I wanted to hear why they decided to live the way they do. It sparked (obviously) some interesting discussions, and then I sort of forgot about it.

But last night our family went out to eat in celebration of two major events (moving here and my dad buying his business) that actually happened in September, but we always forget about it until later in the fall. So yes, it's October, and we're finally celebrating our Family Day of Awesomeness. Or whatever it's called.

So, while we were sitting around, waiting for the food (most specifically, the rolls, which they forgot to give us, and we were all pretty hungry for them, sigh) I thought it would be fun to get some advice from the other side of the family. My little sister (she'll always be my little sister, no matter how old she gets!) is nearly 16 (see? not exactly little any longer), so I asked her to give all of us some life advice. By the time I was her age I thought I had a pretty good handle on things (little did I know...) and thought it would be interesting to get her take on the subject.

She thought for a few minutes, and then came out with one of the wisest things I've heard in a long time. "Disobedience is never worth it." That was all. She just said it as if, well, of course, life advice was her speciality.

Yeah, I wasn't that smart when I was 15.

But it made me think of the verse in 1 Samuel 15, that says that "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Then it continues about rebellion being as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry (those verses used to strike a great deal of fear into my young heart, especially as I was wont to be rather stubborn), but I was mostly thinking about the obedience part of the verse.

You know, Saul really thought (so it appears) he was doing the right thing in the chapter--he sacrificed to the Lord from the best of the flocks and such. What's so bad about that? Well, nothing, unless the Lord had asked that you, you know, obey Him specifically. And this was the incident where Saul spared Agag, and later, of course, Haman the Agagite tried to destroy the Jewish race, which didn't work out so well for him, but this is off-topic. Go read Esther in case you need to brush up on how unfortunate the whole sparing-of-Agag situation was.

Where was I?

Ah, yes. So Saul did something that, in and of itself, wasn't bad, but certainly had negative consequences. And I can think of so many choices I've made in life (this is depressing: if I've already done so many wrong things and I'm not even a quarter of a century old, how much opportunity will there be in my life for wrongs to be committed? Ugh) where it wasn't as if I were doing something "wrong" per se, but I knew the difference. There are things that leave a sharp bitter taste in your mouth, and you know you don't have peace. Thankfully, I rarely end up losing my kingdom because of it (of course, I don't have a kingdom to lose. Note to self: find a kingdom) but there are still consequences.

So, maybe if I'd asked my sister a few years ago for life advice, I would have been less biscuit-y in some of my choices.

Maybe I need a shirt that says "Obedience is better." On the back it could say stuff about sacrifice or fat of rams, but I'm not sure that people would understand it. The "Obedience is Better" tagline makes sense in and of itself.

Like John H Sammis always said, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey!"

Speak

In the Bible, when the Lord spoke to all those folks in the Old Testament, do you think He spoke aloud? We know that there are times when He came in person form, or when an angel came to send the message. Those times, I'm pretty sure there was audible stuff going on. In those cases it's easy for us to think, "Well, of course they obeyed!" or, better yet, "That was silly of them not to do what He asked--He spoke it plain as day!" But what about when He spoke to Elijah--could Elijah hear it as if someone were speaking to him, or was it more like we hear the Lord today, a knowing in our souls?

When God came to Samuel, we know Samuel heard it aloud. Well, if he didn't, he heard it clearly enough to have thought it was aloud, as shown in the fact that he kept on running to Eli to see why he was calling for him.

In the New Testament we know that while the Lord was on the Earth, He certainly spoke to people, but once He went back to sit down on the right hand of the Father, I think that when He spoke to people, it was in words spoken to their ears alone. Like the passage where Paul begs the Lord to take away his thorn in the flesh, and the Lord simply tells him that His grace was sufficient for Paul. But when Paul was converted on the way to Damascus, I'm guessing Paul heard that voice aloud. Even the other people heard a voice (though it doesn't say what those people heard, exactly).

What I'm getting at is that I don't know if those in the Old Testament had it "easier" than we do in terms of hearing the Lord speak. Bottom line, it's something we have to listen to. His words are there for us to read, every minute, in the Word of God. And if we'd spend a little time being still enough to hear what He has to say, I think we'd hear a lot more. What matters is what we do with the words once we hear them. If we ignore them, as we are apt to do, then what are we accomplishing by listening in the first place? The best idea? Listen, and do. He's got it all mapped out, if only we'll follow His directives.

PS, that's easier said than done.

Bosom Buddies

My friend Firefly and I think freakishly alike. Just so we're all clear.

Here's what I was pondering the other day. Jonathan seemed like a pretty cool guy, and pretty fine with the fact that David was (one day) going to have the kingdom instead of his father, Saul. We are discussing the Biblical Jonathans and Davids, by the way, in case I jumped into this story too swiftly for some.

So Jonathan straight-up told David, "You'll be King, I'll be second in command, we'll be cool." Right. And he could have. Jonathan and his armour-bearer slew a ton of Philistines that time in 1 Samuel 13, after all. Jonathan was clearly an excellent soldier as well as an inspirer of the people.

But... Jonathan died. In a tragic twist, Jonathan was slain among his father's people, fighting a battle he knew he'd lose. David was left with a kingdom in the absence of Saul, but without a right-hand man. Now it was David in the place of authority, trying to keep afloat without his confidante.

But David needed a chief captain. Jonathan was no longer an option, and David needed someone else. I Chronicles 11 tells that David set up sort of a contest for the position. And the man who won was none other than Joab, David's nephew, trouble-maker extraordinaire.

David encountered so many problems with Joab at the helm of his battles. Joab was many things, but a peacemaker was not one of them. Sometimes, when I read this account, I get so sad just thinking about all the things that could have gone better had Jonathan not died during the chaos of the battlefield.

And what stops me every time is the thought, "Did Jonathan really even have to die?" What if, instead of going back to his father, Jonathan had stayed with David? What if he'd given up those years in the seat of the kingdom for the rest of his life at David's right hand?

I, for one, tend to think that David's kingdom would have gone more smoothly, not just on account of Jonathan being a superior captain, but because Jonathan, being Saul's son, could have promoted peace in a fractured kingdom. I know we all like to think that we'd do better--chosen the life with David instead of the comfortable palace bed--but Jonathan seemed to be doing his part by keeping his ears to the wall, so to speak, to listen to what his father was saying, and simultaneously being able to keep alongside David in spirit and encourage him.

But it wasn't enough. When the battle was over, Jonathan fought and died on the wrong side. David was left without a friend; Israel without a stable captain. David's kingdom was less than it could have been, because Jonathan remained in the comfort of his father's kingdom, unwilling to suffer the rejection of David's daily walk.

Safe

So, I'm not feeling very wordy today. I'm feeling, however, that I love knowing that I'm safe in Christ's care.

Wow. I just had the weirdest feeling ever. I all of a sudden remembered that when my Dad told us that my brother had passed away, he jumped out of the van where we were waiting for news, and (I think) he said to my mom, "He's safe." That's not weird, it made sense (remember when David from the Bible asked if the young man Absalom was safe? I think it was reminiscent of that), but what's weird is... I'm not sure.

Fine, fine, it was six years ago, but the details of that day seemed like things I'd never forget. Sitting on the porch swing for hours, trying to read my book (ironically, Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow), but being worried sick about what could have happened. Kneeling in the living room, praying with my family for the safety of the members of the family we were worried for. Trying to go through the motions of the day, playing games, making meals, exactly as if we were going to sit down that night like a normal family and have dinner together.

But all of a sudden, I don't quite remember if my dad said those words, "He's safe." I can ask someone and refresh my memory (and I will!) but it's been so far archived in my brain that it's not retrievable with 100% accuracy.

Sorry. Sad moment alert. Good thing I know I'm resting safe in the Father's hand, right?

How delightful

Our family is reading in 2 Samuel during morning readings, and I loved a verse in chapter 22, verse 21 says something about how the Lord delivered David because He "delighted in him." Isn't that the coolest thing ever? I think it's awesome that David could say with such assurance, "Y'know what? The Lord delights in me."

I think verses about delight are cool in the Bible. I was just memorizing this verse from Isaiah the other day, and it said to let your soul delight itself in fatness. I thought it was pretty amusing, but nobody else did, I don't know why.

But verses about delight are such fun to read, for some reason. I love reading about people in whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and how the Lord delights in His saints, et cetera. I think I just like to hear the word "delight." But just think: we delight in what the Lord has given us, and He delights right back at us.

Enough to keep one smiling till the rapture, don't you think?

Saul & Co.

There are some stories in the Bible that just make me sad. Anything to do with Tamar (either one, really), stuff about eating children, etc. But our family was just reading about the time there was a famine in the land, and it was because the Gibeonites were feeling upset because of the whole Saul thing (for a more complete rendering, please read 2 Samuel 21).

Anyhow, long story short, David up and killed a ton of descendants of Saul, just to make the Gibeonites happy. I think it's nice that the famine stopped, but seriously, at such a cost? That story just hurts me to read. Not to mention that it's not long after the whole Absalom story, which breaks my heart every time. Regardless, I'm discussing David and Saul.

I just find that whole Old Testament thing so hard to swallow sometimes. I mean, really, they had to kill those dudes to stop the famine? Wasn't there something else they could have done? Couldn't they have sent them some gift certificates to Camels, Ltd. or something? And when you think about Rizpa, the unfortunate concubine of Saul whose two sons were killed and left out to rot in the sun, you realize what a cruel situation it was.

Of course, I always wonder about Michal in all of this. Did she care about any of these going's-on? You'd better believe she was keenly aware of the fact that her sons with her ex-husband Adriel were being strung up by her current slash also-ex-husband David. How could she not? But did she care about Rizpa's sons? Did she care that Mephibosheth was living in the city, maybe even not too far from where she lived? I wish there was some way we could get a peek into the lives of the minoresque characters in the Bible. The dynamic between Michal and David is fascinating to me, and I often wonder if Michal, Jonathan, and David hung out, back in the day, when David was still just that kid who played the harp part-time for Saul. I know family dynamics these days aren't quite what they were back in the OT times, but still, the sense of family is pretty important, I think, no matter what era you're living in.

So the moral of the story is simply that the whole situation with David and Saul's kin makes me sad. Mephibosheth got a pretty good deal, but nobody else seemed to end up too happily. So much for the life of royalty, eh?

Prayers and things like that

Sometimes I just need some time with the Lord. Not because I feel like I'm losing my grip on Him and need to reconnect, but because I feel like I just can't have anybody around me as I fellowship with Him. Right now there's some crazy stuff going on around my place, and I've been pretty much bawling my eyes out for the past day. Less than that, actually, even though it feels like much longer.

But anyhow, I got MikesChair out of the library on Monday, which was crazy and of the Lord, because I've been listening to their song, Let the Waters Rise, even before stuff went a little crazy. This is short, I know, but sometimes there's nothing to say but that I love being able to pray. I love knowing that underneath are the everlasting arms. I love casting all my cares upon Him. This morning in Bible reading with my family I happened to read 1 Samuel 25:29, the verse about being "bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord my God," and I just started crying. I love knowing that I'm bound up in the bundle of life with my Lord, and... I trust that everyone I know and love is being bound up in that bundle of life.

Here are the lyrics to that amazing song, for those who aren't familiar with the song. Look it up, if you don't know it. And when you listen, pray for the brokenhearted.

Don't know where to begin
It's like my world's caving in
And I tried but i can't control my fear
Where do I go from here

Sometimes it's so hard to pray
You feel so far away
I am willing to go where You want me to
God I trust You

[Chorus]
There's a raging sea
Right in front of me
Wants to pull me in
Bring me to my knees
So let the waters rise
If you want them to
I will follow You
I will follow You
I will follow You

I will swim in the deep
'Cause You'll be next to me
You're in the eye of the storm and the calm of the sea
You're never out of reach

God You know where I've been
You were there with me then
You were faithful before
You'll be faithful again
I'm holding Your hand

[Chorus]

God Your love is enough
You will pull me through
I'm holding on to You

God your love is enough
I will follow You
I will follow You

[Chorus]"