Monday Morning Cover to Cover

Thanks so much to all of you for your kind words to me while I was really sick for a couple of weeks. It was a scary time for me fainting nine times with no control and watching my body not co-operate. I Am B A C K and I am so grateful to God for health! I started feeling a lot better mid-week but this past weekend, I took a group of high school students to Austin for a state academic competition and it set me back a little. I went through with the trip because I was paid several months ago to do it. I would have had to return the money. My husband is in-between jobs right now and I am unemployed looking for a job. Pray for me Monday as I hit the streets looking for a job.

I want to share with you five verses that linger with me as we read the Bible together this week. Today we read Judges 19 and 20, a very disturbing story about a husband cutting up his dead wife into 12 pieces and sending her as a "message" to each of the tribes. I was deeply moved by this vile volatile vicious story. My beautiful God so showed up for me tonight as I read these two chapters. He spoke His Love and His Kindness over my life as I reflected on a story from my teenage years. I will end this post with that story. Deuteronomy 33:23,24 says there is no other God who rides the heavens to help you. The word for help means "lifesaver." He saved my life as a teen. He continues to rescue me to this very day.

DO NOT FORGET
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord (Judges 3:7). They forgot the Lord their God. Oh My! So caught up in living life, they forgot about their God who had delivered them. Caught up in busyness of multiple children and multiple ministries and multiple activities. Am I hiding in the busyness of life or am I demanding things go my way. Or am I inviting my God to invade every nook and cranny of my life? Does my life invite others to take a look at my God or do I forget about HIM as I move through my day?

RISE LIKE THE SUN
May those who love God rise like the sun in all its power. Judges 5:31. I loved Deborah’s song of love to her King. She was so in love with HIM. May we all rise like the sun this day to love HIM.

GO IN THE STRENGTH YOU HAVE
Judges 6:12 Go in the strength you have, mighty warrior. That’s what God called this scared-to-death servant who just said: Why has all this happened to us? Where are all His wonders now? God never left Gideon. God’s response was not rebuke but His presence. Go in the strength you have and I will be with you. But I am the least, the weakest, replies Gideon. I feel like Gideon so often that I am the least, worthless. I can go in the strength I have and trust God for His presence, His calling.

WAIT FOR ME GOD
Give me a sign that it is really YOU talking to me God! Please don’t go away until I come back with an offering. Judges 6:17,18 – And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘I will wait until you return.' Gideon moved and put out a fleece twice in the strength that he had. God is always waiting for us to return.

OBEY WITHOUT FEAR
Judges 6:27 Gideon did what God commanded. But he did it at night because he was afraid of the people of the town. He obeyed when no one was looking. A heart for God obeys when people are looking and when no one is looking.

So that brings us to this vicious, vile, violent crime in Judges 19 and 20. Her husband had much time to think about what he would do with her body as he traveled back home with his dead concubine on his donkey. This priest decided how he would get the attention of each of the tribes---send a butchered part of her body to them showing them what had been done to her. Judges 19:20 – such a thing had never been done before and the response of the tribes was right when they said: “tell us what to do” to get the evil out of their midst. Finally, this atrocity attracted their attention.

Deuteronomy says any evil in Israel will be dealt with aggressively. The Benjamites had the opportunity to turn over those who perpetrated crimes. It seems that the leaders of the Benjamites protected their bad characters, their families. Other tribes overlooked it as well. But the concubine being butchered----it took this shocking revelation --- "never seen such a thing in Israel" --- to show them that they had refused to deal with the evil growing in the children of Israel. They FORGOT about their God. The tribe of Benjamin was given opportunity to turn over the evil in their city...and the leaders of Benjamin refused to turn over the men, refused to extricate and eradicate the evil. They all had a corporate responsibility to deal with the evil. This evil among them was known. The Levite could have buried his concubine and hid the story OR disclose the evil and call for a response. Thousands died because he stood up to say this evil among us is not right before our God.

We cannot sit back and watch evil move. Do I pretend that all is well when so many in our country are entertaining evil. What evil will I die for? There is a moral responsibility bigger than just my family. I cannot keep silent over evil in my own life, my family, my world. I must respond.

I want to share with you a story from my childhood. I was sixteen. I was layed on the threshold of my door one early spring morning, left for dead. It was my first prom night and I consumed way too much vodka straight out the bottle. Alcohol poisoning. Knocked unconscious. Gang rape. My date and his friends used me. I was left the next morning in my white eyelet prom dress covered with blood on my family’s doorstep still unconscious. I would not awaken for another 24 hours. My parents never took me to the hospital. They picked me up and put me in the back room hoping I would wake up. It was my decision to drink. It was my date and his friends’ decision to rape me. The rape was not my fault.

When I read Judges 19 and 20 tonight, and got to the point of the concubine being layed on the threshold, I sobbed and sobbed. But, inside of me, there is something beautiful about this story for scores of people responded to the abuse of this woman. Responded to the evil in their world and said NO MORE. You see, my God is the one Who responded to my story when I was a child. Called me by name. Called to HIMSELF. And that has been more than enough! He fights for me all my days. Deut 33: 26,27. Yes, there is no one like my God who rides the heavens to help. Underneath me are His everlasting Arms. I am secure. No longer worthless. My perception of what I think about myself is not based on what happens to me. My story doesn't define me. "Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted." (Brennan Manning)

This story so speaks to me tonight. I love what the Israelites did to the face of Evil. And I love how my God strengthens me to traipse upon the Evil that rears its head in my life. NO MORE. I do have something to offer to others even though I may feel worthless for my beautiful God rescued me from the domain of darkness and He is rescuing me all the time. Thanks be to our good God. May we not ever forget what He has done for us!