Ruth - A True Heroine

Kingsman Redeemer is a foreign concept to most Americans. A Kingsman’s Redeemer (redeemer means buy back) would act as a trustee for family business, buy back enslaved family members, buy back family land and provide an heir.

Other cultures in modern time still consider “family” no matter how weak the link. How many of us know our second and third cousins? Let alone a cousin through marriage? Before I studied Ruth I didn't think about family. Now I'm very involved in my genealogy and have met my cousins! I found my dad's half-brother after 40 years of separation of which neither could remember why!

In the Book of Ruth, Boaz was Ruth’s Kingsman Redeemer through her mother-in-law, Namoi. Even though Ruth’s was linked by marriage to a man who had died, her position was secured under God’s laws.

Imagine knowing your relatives were going to do the right thing by you? What would happen to the Jerry Springer’s show?

By today’s standards, people might not like the idea that their fate might be entrusted to that of another family member, and yet when we look at choices people are making on their own, they really can’t make a good case for their freedoms. Plus, when we get into trouble today, most of us have to go to the bank (and in this economy good luck!) not another family member ready to help set our course and restore our comforts.

Naomi understood that for Ruth to have a good life in a new land she would need the help of family. Imagine how different the story would have turned out if Naomi hadn’t had family to rely on? Or, imagine if Ruth had been a “willful” heroine and not willing to follow the instructions of Naomi?

Well, times are so different. Our children aren’t going to trust us to know the “right course.”Our society encourages individual freedoms. Culture now dictates our children, seldom the wise wisdom of parents, let alone ex-in-laws!

“The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband…” Ruth 1:9

That’s a powerful message from Naomi, and could be missed by today’s women Bible readers. I know I missed it! It was only today when I opened my very old King James Version to review some additional thoughts about Ruth, that that message all but “leaped off the page.” Many women (myself included) do not turn often (maybe never) for rest in their husbands. Let’s face it, that is not something society ever talks about. I haven’t Googled the theological meaning, but to me it means we have to let our men lead, care and protect us. Sound’s old fashioned, doesn’t it?

I can still hear that Enjolie perfume commercial, “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan…cuz I’m a woman!”

Growing up at the end of the 50’s and early 60’s, I watched my mother in both rolls—both wife and worker, on the crest of the woman’s movement. She had enormous strength and energy and did about 100 things at one time—including working, cooking, cleaning, gardening, crocheting (things for everyone but herself)…but she eventually burned out and died too young of cancer.

Getting back to Ruth, we see that she wasn’t a slacker, either; she went right out into the fields and started working. But she was a widow, with no man to meet any of her needs. After she married Boaz, I can assure he she wasn’t working in the fields anymore. Us modern women sometimes think once we’re married we still have to work the fields, gather the grain, haul it all home and pound out a loaf of bread while our man is working a remote from the comfy recliner.

Society has put it into our heads that our needs don’t matter as much as our husband’s. We don’t realize this, but it’s not healthy for our marriages to be all to everyone. We’re not wired that way. It’s not what God had in mind when he created woman.

I was a bra burner, the most modern thinker when it came to women’s rights. But reading the Bible has changed my perspective considerably. I don’t think there’s one right answer for all women, but we can take the messages, like those of Ruth, and pattern our lives in ways that are healthy and pleasing to God.

Ruth also reminds me to be gracious rather than ambitious. In our fast-paced world that’s not always easy for me to do. I find myself being ambitious to get the laundry done and the groceries out of the way on Sunday (the day of rest, mind you) so I can have “time to veg” before the workweek starts all over again.

The devil is in the grind—the “traffic of life.”

Sometimes we think no one understands our pressures, or our sorrows. God does, and it's revealed in Ruth.

God understood Ruth’s sorrow when she lost her husband and the pressure to survive, just as he understands our problems.

If you’re anything like me, you think your problems are too insignificant for God. After all, there are huge sorrows in this world and if I line mine up, they look rather tepid compared to world events—which by the way, we’re being bombarded with on TV and the Internet. Every bad thing that happens to any one of the billions of humans on this planet is now reported. This is the devil’s plan. He’s making you feel insignificant along side murders, wars, hurricanes, and all manner of ill, so that you won’t pray for yourself, and if you don’t pray for yourself, you don’t make a connection with the God.

See how that works?

It’s hard to get down on my knees and pray for myself when the world is so broken and when I’m broken and being petty about traffic and the sorrows of others. It makes me feel selfish, somehow, but that’s the wrong wiring. That is just plain devil lies.

God tells us to pray, for ourselves, for others and for the church. He commands that we pray.It’s a sin not to pray, especially for others. He doesn’t tell us to pray only for the great injustices of the world, he wants us to pray for our own trials, no matter how small they seem to us. We are worthy in God’s eyes.

And that’s one of the other messages I got out of Ruth. I am worthy in the eyes of the Lord. He cares about me. Now get down on your knees and pray!

(Reprint from previous Turtle-Dove Blog)

A Chance Encounter?

Pretty much everyone knows the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. If you don't, read John 4:1-54.

Here's a woman who encounters Jesus Christ. She wasn't looking for spiritual enlightenment, so that idea, that we have to seek God, is bunk. She's not of his faith, in fact, she's far from even a moral person, since she's known to sleep around with men. In the culture of that time a woman with an immoral lifestyle would be shunned. We can fairly assume she was abused and shamed, that she her openness and trust were deadened. Her sense of hope was lost, and surely she felt flawed.

The Samaritan woman is the same broken person today walking around with internalized shame, which fuels addictions. Especially sad for those who know about Jesus but don't believe he's their salvation, or who think somehow they'll be okay if they drink, eat, have sex, get more money, work harder, or whatever. They are an object of scorn to themselves.

These kinds of people could be considered enemies of Christ because they denounce him as their savior. In this story we can learn how to be non-judgmental and how to share Christ's message of salvation with broken people even if it's not comfortable. This is a way of thinking we can strive for, and share, that there is someone who could want and love us just the way we are, and his name is Jesus Christ.

These passages challenge the claims that Jesus and his message are not authentic, or relevant to all ages. It does this in several ways. Let's first get some background to this amazing story, because its way more than a chance meeting at a well. Jesus never did anything by chance or accident, not in this story and not in your life.

Between Judea and Galilee was a little country called Samaria. This country used to belong to the kingdom of Israel; but when the Israelites were carried away as captives by the king of Assyria, strangers from other lands came into that country and made it their home.

These strangers learned about the God of the Israelites, but they never worshiped God at the temple in Jerusalem. Instead they built their own temple in their country and worshiped there. They became bitter enemies of the Jews, and at the time of Jesus they were still despised by them. In going or returning to Jerusalem the Jews of Galilee would not take the shorter road through Samaria, but would travel the long road. This would lead to and across the Jordan River, then along the border of land where the Samaritans lived.

We have to understand that Jesus was a Jew, and studied in the synagogues as a Jew. He had been brought up the same as all Jewish boys of his time, and likely taught to feel the same way about all the customs, especially those laws about clean and unclean. He would certainly know everything there was to know about the Samaritans. Preconceived ideology about other races is born into families and religions. This wasn't just a nationality that the Jews looked down their noses at, no this was pure and bitter hate and disgust! This was a deep and hateful prejudice, maybe similar to the ways of the South during slavery, and maybe now like some clashing cultures in our own time.

Maybe your Samaria is right in your own city. Perhaps there's areas you'd rather "drive around" than run into a Samaritan. Maybe the Samaria is your family. There may be members you'd rather "avoid" at all costs and you'd rather take the long road than see them!

On the day we're talking about it was the middle of afternoon in Samaria, and brutally hot, but the Samaritan woman walked to Jacob's well at this time to avoid the cooler evening hours, lest she run into other Jewish women who might say something unkind to her. She was not only a Samaritan woman, but she was living a reprobate life. People knew she'd slept around with many men. Her shame was most likely great, but she bore it in the heat of the day, and lived in the margins of her society. No doubt she wanted to hurry to get her water, and to head back as quickly as possible before she was seen. But isn't it like God to put something in our path, and change it?

The Samaritan woman spotted Jesus. There he sat, at the well, likely seeing her approach. How many times do we encounter Jesus without knowing he's present? She probably had a lot on her mind, and very likely it wasn't her relationship with God. Without any warning God may be near and asking us to stop worrying about the world and get into relationship with him. This is especially true for people who do not know about Him, or believe he's not their salvation. New believers often have profound revelations about Jesus Christ because they meet him at "their well."

As a Samaritan woman, she might have been frightened to even approach a Jewish man alone. Her fear would be in her heart, for she knew that a Jewish man would not speak to a woman in public. Jesus had every reason under Jewish law to shun her, and no one would have thought any different of him, not even his followers. Instead, what he went on to do overrode all the old prejudices and hate and later brought consternation to his disciples.

Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" John 4:7

Why would Jesus, outside of his own Jewish faith, his own Jewish culture surrounding the affairs of women, engage her in conversation? He could have said nothing, or said, "Good afternoon," and left it at that--shocking enough, but no, he did not share the bitter feelings of the Jews toward the people of Samaria, nor did he have any issues with talking to women in public. He knew she was just as precious in the eyes of God as were any other person, and he longed to teach her about the kingdom of heaven. Oh, if we could only live as Jesus lived! If only we didn't prejudge who we thought would or wouldn't be receptive to our witness!

That he would say anything to this woman surely was shocking to her, and perhaps her fear doubled. She must have felt like she was blinded in his bright light! Imagine Jesus Christ appearing and talking to you? Surely she felt something from him--some magnetism some peace, something incomparable to any person she'd ever come across.

The first thing she says back to him, even though she's surely shocked, is, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" John 4:9

We can imagine she wished she could pull those words back! Socially she had no right to question a Jewish man, and her response was rather outrageous. She certainly would have expected something reproachful in return.

Jesus, not dissuaded said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." John 4:10

This entire sentence went right over the woman's head. She took it literally, thinking he could somehow magically produce "living water" that would save her the long trek out to the well every afternoon in the blazing heat. Maybe she thought he was poking fun at her ignorance, but she turned and said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep." John 4:11

Rather than stopping there, she added: "Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" John 4:11-12

It's interesting that she argued with his ability to do what he claimed he can do! Even though the circumstances are unusual (A Jew talking to a Samaritan woman), she challenged him further by asking if he was greater than Jacob! She turned things around, if you will, and asked who was he to question that which has been working fine all along, thank you. Living water! Whatever! This woman was gutsy and foolish at the same time. All her stored up hate of Jewish people and "men" seemed to have come out at once.

Jesus didn't flinch, he simply and calmly told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." John 4:16

I'm sure the blood rushed up to her face. "I have no husband."

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." John 4:17-18

He agreed with her, not arguing and not condemning. He agreed she's living a life of sin. It was only then that it dawned on her that he was someone, indeed. She thought he was a prophet, but she still couldn't face up to the ares of her life that needed changing.

So often we don't want to look at those areas in our life that need changing, and yet we know they keep God's spirit and light from shining into our world.

"Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem," she declares. John 4:19-20

Isn't it obvious she didn't want to talk about her lifestyle? She was trying to divert the conversation in another direction. It's doubtful she cared where her people worshiped. She wanted to take the spotlight off of her sins. This is what we do, right? Rather than confess our sins, we start pointing out the problems of others. How can I change if the world isn't changing. It's his fault, their fault, your fault, but not mine!

She's also stirring up the old controversy between the Jews and Samaritans. How many conversations have you found yourself in with unbelievers, or those who follow a counterfeit faith and the very first thing that happens is they'll point out the old controversies. It's never anything Christians haven't heard before, usually regarding harsher laws in the Old Testament, and it was the same here, with Jesus and this woman. But, she couldn't draw him into an argument, just as we can't be led into arguments.

Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:21-24

Imagine her surprise when he included the Samaritans in salvation?

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." John 4:25

Ah, ha! She knew about him! How many say they know him and he'll explain everything, and this gives them an excuse to do nothing but wait?

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." John 4:26

This was the first time he declared he's the messiah. Think of those implications! This is why this story would not have made the cut if man had written the Bible. Why would Jesus tell this Samaritan woman first, who lived in sin, and not his disciples, or the Pharisees, or the king that he was the messiah?

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people
"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him." John 4:28-30

This brief encounter with her savior restored her back into society. The people she told this story to believed her and went to see for themselves whom she spoke. Jesus gave her that power and that grace, and that's what he does for us, if only we believe.

This is a powerful story of revelation and change. Jesus offered salvation without anything in return but to believe in him and share the good news. She received his spiritual nourishment through faith and she harvested more souls for the Kingdom. Despite her reputation, many took her invitation and came to meet Jesus.

Damage Control

Throughout the world our Christian image is in the toilet, thanks, in part, to G.W. latching onto various Christian leaders and proclaiming that God chose him to rule the country, and look at our country today. Few US Presidents have been as openly religious as Bush, but this didn’t help the Christian populace when he couldn’t justify the Iraq war or explain our current economy. But this isn’t a political site, and we continue to pray for our leaders.

A year ago the Barna Group did a survey showing that 16-to 29-year-olds were more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago. They also do not believe that there's one moral objective truth. The same report indicates more and more people view Christianity negatively and with out-right hostility. Don’t think this viewpoint just happened. There’s an agenda at work to tear down Christianity. It’s never been more urgent that Christians act like Christians.

High profile evangelical leaders have damaged our credibility, too, leaving us to hold the explanation bag when they fall off their holier than thou bandwagons. Thanks to the lightening fast media, Blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards, everyone has a good laugh, and these fallen preachers are representatives of all Christians.

Todd Bentley for example, the tattooed healing preacher from Florida was recently caught having an affair with one of his parishioners, and people are having a good “I told you he was a fake” moment. Ted Haggard founded one of the most successful mega churches in the country, yet was having a homosexual relationship with a male prostitute while furiously preaching against homosexuality.

There is a large and growing body of Americans who believe that Christians are armed with ignorance and hate and they're waiting for the "old guard" to die so new ideas can flourish. These new ideas include new age, eastern religions, wiccan, astrology, and atheism, to name a few.

If we’re doing the works of the righteous, we must be righteous. We must forsake sin even in the presence of adversities and popularity. We must spread the message that God is the creator, the ruler, judge, savior, father, preserver, and benefactor. We must grow in God’s Word, in Grace, and pray without ceasing.

Fact: I get more hits when I write about atheism than when I write about Christianity.

Bad Vibrations - More on Love

Much of what I've shared on this blog relates to the stark contrasts between my life in eastern religion and conversion into Christianity.

If I can't take 30 years of striving for perfection in a yogic life, and the pitfalls I encountered with eastern religious logic, and share this with others heading "east," and warn them, then those 30 years were a waste. But we know that's not true, right? Nothing is a waste if we glorify it in Christ. We are the sum-total of our experiences. Jesus told me not to "hate" any part of my life. That's how most of us live. Denying big chunks of self and trying to do something with the part we like. We run very fast from our sins, bury them as deeply as we can so they remain hidden, lest we have to face them again and again. Horror of horrors.

The Bible's message will set us free, even though some Christians struggle with believing God hates sinners, and is angry with them. The Bible plainly explains we're not perfect, we're not going to be perfect, so stop trying. Jesus loves every single hair on our heads. Jesus wants us to embrace our true selves.

Eastern religion does not teach that there is a savior who loves us and wants to redeem us. Instead their message is that only through yogic works can we be "free" of the ego and attain a state of enlightenment, or oneness with God.

As I've shared before, leaving my eastern religion was extremely difficult simply because I'd been such good devotee of the program. My unending quest to connect with God, to seek that eternal joy within, kept me attuned with Indian philosophy and the striving for perfection. That eternal joy I embraced wasn't eternal, I eventually learned those moments of peace were as long as the meditation.

I struggled for many years with a "holy" life or "holier-than-hell" life. Eastern religion is more attuned to isolation, meaning that though Hinduism is ancient, it does not have a blueprint for those living in a modern world.

Now, where does love fit in? Being a yogi requires intellectual study and meditation, not the cultivation of relationships, which is where you'll find love.

Because karma can't be forgiven, you work out your karma through yoga, but yoga is a means not an end. There are many disciplines in yoga. I followed Raja Yoga, a "royal yoga" that is, a highway to self realization and enlightenment. The royal highway means you have work to do; you have to transform and purify yourself until all karma is burned, releasing you from the chains of this world. The ordinary man could not conceive the absolute spirit, only a self-realized yogi.

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Meditation was the place to seek wisdom, yoga postures is a way to attain the discipline of body, Bakti yoga is a way to attain devotion. Many practices but no official word from God. They often use the Bhagavad Gita as God's word, there's nothing in the document that can be verified as an actuality. It's a wonderful poem about man doing his duty, but it's not the word of God.

The Bible is roughly ignored in eastern religion. Because the church I belonged to referred to Biblical scripture on Sundays and limited it to an interpretation by their founder, no one considered reading the Bible on their own. Often we were told that it took a "master" to understand a "master," and therefore we would not understand the Bible without the guru's interpretation. I honestly didn't realize the Bible was God's word, or that it's alive. It's called a living Bible. There are over 37,000 promises to be found in the Bible, as well as history, prophecy, wisdom literature, letters and instructions.

Okay, so, again, where was the love in eastern religion? Did God love us when we went to that temple? How did we love God if we were bungee corded to the earth in a dreadful karmic cycle?

What I came to learn was God wasn't the image of man, rather we were told he was a vibration and was part of everything, including this computer screen. It was the vibration of God we loved and were to mold the vibration into an image we could understand and desire. To love God we were to cultivate the desire for God by coming up with a concept such as a guru or a statue of Krishna or a picture of a God, even the picture of Jesus. We were taught that ordinary love is selfish and rooted in desire, so we did not love in an ordinary way. We were told to talk to God in the language of our hearts, that "wanting to love God--was loving God." God would not deny anyone his love if we made a sincere effort. We were told there is no sin, and no Satan, that the world is made up of light and darkness. Good and bad. That the laws were universal and applied to everyone.

When did the holes get poked in my eastern religion faith?

The night my mother died. Sitting in a stairwell at Long Beach Memorial hospital, clutching my cellphone, having just hung up with an arrogant monk, I knew my guru was a god impostor. Sometimes life changes in a stairwell.

My eastern religion leaders told me my mother deserved to die a horrible cancer death, and that she really didn't mind dying in this way, that her soul understood. She had done something to someone, somewhere and she was paying her karmic dues. After she suffered and died, her soul would be whisked off to be reborn again in the body of her choosing. I would never see my mother again. While I sobbed on the phone, the monk told me to be happy for her. Her soul was going to be released. He felt he could do more by meditating in the Pasadena hills, where the ashram resided, than coming down to the hospital.

None of the devotees knew how to comfort me, for to show grief was to show ego earth-binding inclinations. They almost seemed afraid of me, as if I had seen what was in store for them.

No, I was to pick up and carry on in my quest to find God and let the dead bury the dead.

All those years, I'd believed dying to be part of the karmic wheel. Well, here was death. I can say I lived in shock for a good long time after mom passed. The one person I needed to accept me, died, and her last word to me was "shit." I was trying to make her more comfortable, telling her it was okay to pass, to let her pain go, and she jerked her hand from mine and said, "shit," and then she lapsed into her final coma.

I found a bathroom and vomited. I heard someone tell my father of my state and I heard him say in an angry voice, "she'll be fine." I was not fine. There was no way out. There was nothing I could do. It was absurd. 30 years of meditation was not going to save my mother nor give me an ounce of grace. I was on my own. The pain was so unbearable that I was chewing pain pills and Xanax.

It was my inability to reconcile mom's death--or find peace about it, that eventually, though not entirely at once, turned me toward Christ. Because I had been so completely brain washed about the nature of God, when I first began reading the Bible I couldn't grasp the message. In talk therapy I learned I'd formed a religious addiction. Through meditation I sought escape, and so did everyone else I knew that was striving for this oneness, perfection with God. Within their lives, broken marriages, alcohol, drugs, affairs, deceptions, continued but while in they meditated they could numb out, and all these other problems would go away--but they don't go away. They cling to you like tar and feathers.

We would escape into this unreal mythical world where a guru, his monks and nuns, along with rules and regulations put a divide between us and God. There was so much perfectionism running amok that it became alarmingly difficult to do anything within this church without someone pointing out that it wasn't good enough. Silly things like using a ruler to measure the exact location a plastic spoon and fork should be set on a table. The devotees used this perfection system to humiliate and wound "lesser" devotees and to pump their egos. These helpers would be reduce to tears and told they were ego bound, and that "master used to upbraid his devotees," and they were only doing what the master would do. Or, "they were doing (fill in the blanks of abuse) because they loved the master, and we should be more understanding if we loved him.

My eastern religion prescribed to toxic shame in the name of God. They severed my soul. They brought me feelings of distrust, worthlessness, inferiority. Because I came from a shameless home, where abandonment, ridicule, abuse, neglect and perfectionism existed, eastern religion became my new family. Many devotees were from similar abusive families and they passed it on to others through control, perfectionism, contempt, criticism, blame, envy, judgment, power and rage.

When I began to seriously question the flaws of the teachings, I was excommunicated. They excommunicated me by abandonment. I was so wounded I wasn't aware I was being excommunicated. They didn't need me. Not really, there was another putz who'd just joined. Why keep the trouble makers? Hadn't they been really good at getting rid of them? What about those mysteriously missing monks who quit? Where'd they go? Where do people go when they are excommunicated? Don't think we didn't ask! We lost many monks to mystery. The really good ones never stayed.

Spiritually, I was a zombie. I could not pray, nor meditate. I drifted. I tried to read the Bible.

Everything I'd studied was now in direct conflict with the God of the Bible. The Bible was telling me I didn't have to do anything but accept Jesus Christ, that Jesus loved me. He loved me so much that he died for me. I didn't understand this kind of love. I didn't believe it. The Bible is just something made up, I told myself because that's what my church told me. They said Jesus orchestrated his Crucifixion, like a play, that he cast his own characters, that it was just done as an example of how much one could be devoted to God. We could all be Christ-like, or attain Christ consciousness. Jesus Christ had gone to India and had learned Kriya Yoga and that's what he'd taught his disciples, but the secret teachings were written out of the Bible, don't you know? And now Jesus was working with an Indian Avatar named Babaji, and together they were running the World. They were the CEO's. I believed this remake, and so does thousands of world wide devotees, even still, if not more.

The Bible says love compensates for our sin. Eastern religion says you have to work off karma to know God. There's no hall passes. The guru can not release of the work you must do; he's more of an adviser.

While I was in spiritual recovery, I came across this poem, and it seemed to be Jesus speaking to me.

Welcome to the world, I've been waiting for you.
I'm so glad you're here.
I've prepared a special place for you to live.
I like you just the way you are.
I will not leave you no matter what.
Your needs are okay with me.
I'll give you all the time you need to get your needs met.
I'm so glad you're a girl.
I want to take care of you, and I'm prepared to do that.
I like feeding you, bathing you, changing you, and spending time with you.
In all the world, there has never been another like you.
God smiled when you were born.

(John Bradshaw, Home Coming, Bantam Books)

When I began to do inner child work, I began to develop a new relationship with God. It didn't come quick, and God dropped a few wake-up calls into my life to move things along. Jesus' warnings about false teachers hit me hardest. The closer I examined the Bible the more I realized that though some eastern religion has nice-sounding messages, they do not agree with God's message in the Bible. I learned God's love is truly complete. How great is the love of the father! Never had I read so much about love, or how it could change my life. In just a few years as a believer my life is completely changed.

Now I know I will see my mother again. She believed in Jesus Christ. She is already glorified in heaven.

The Lord our God is a merciful God. 2 Sm 24:14

Who Is Your Lot?

When God asked Abram to leave his country, his people, and his father’s household and go to the land He would show him, Abram did what we all do: he packed Lot, and Lot eventually became an obstacle to Abram’s receiving the land God had promised him.

We come into the Kingdom “new” in Christ, but how many of us pack up the past and bring it along? Lot could be a person, an addiction, a bad attitude. Lot’s are whatever keeps us from advancing in our walk with the Lord, but they’re not what prevent us from starting the journey.

What if God asked us to remove someone or something before coming into the Kingdom? I think most would miss the call if it was contingent on letting their Lot’s walk off to the East before it was time to say goodbye. Instead, God allows us to pack up our family, friends, problems, addictions, hurts and garbage and set off. Just as God took care of Abram’s “Lot,” so will God take care of ours, in His time and His terms.

Sometimes, like Abram, we’re not even aware of the Lot’s in our life. Maybe Lot is our staying “busy.” We don’t know how to say, no, and don’t leave enough time for ourselves. Maybe Lot is our work. We spend too much time there and not enough with our families. Maybe our Lot is the wrong kind of friend. Maybe our Lot is being a victim. Our wounds have defined us, and even though Jesus is offering us a new life, we’re afraid to let go of the shame, pain and anger that defined us for so long?

As we read in Genesis, God didn’t ask Abram to remove Lot, and I think there’s a reason for God’s patience. He sees something greater for us than the immediate struggle to choose what and who to take with us into the Kingdom.

I have a few Lots in my life, and one of them is a person who is preventing me from advancing forward with an urgent family matter. There’s nothing I want more than God to take care of this matter, but it’s beginning to seem that God’s teaching me patience before he’s going to make his move. But, I’m still impatient and I wonder when God’s going to hear my prayer? Doesn’t he know this just isn’t working? Is God going to intervene, and when? Then I question my faith, and questioning our faith is the work of Satan.

We must remind ourselves that even Abram wanted to know with some certainty that things would work out. Its okay to ask, but don’t lose faith if the answer isn’t immediate. In this “instant” text messaging, email world we now live in, it’s even harder than Abram’s time to take time to wait.

But when God finally took Abram out of the tent and told him to count the stars that would come to represent the number of his offspring, he also said, “if, indeed, you can count them.” We’ve no idea the blessings the Lord has given us, and will continue to rain upon us. In the meantime, we should remind ourselves that Lot was the means by which Abram received the promised blessing. We can gain comfort that our Lots might be the pathway to ours.