Word of God

40 Day Feast

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

I tried something new over Lent this year. Rather than fast from food, I fasted from social media, which is not novel in itself. The new part was adding in a Lenten feast. For forty days, I replaced any entertainment (fiction books, movies, shows, etc.) with reading God’s Word. All of it. I had a 40 day feast on the Word of Life.

The number 40 appears in several places throughout the Scriptures, often expressed as a period of 40 days and nights or 40 years. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the following examples will demonstrate my point:

  • In Genesis 7, rain fell for 40 days and nights
  • The Israelites and Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness
  • Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s household
  • Moses also spent 40 days and nights fasting on Mount Sinai and receiving the Torah. Twice.
  • Joshua, Caleb, and the spies explored Canaan for 40 days
  • Several of the judges were in charge for 40 years
  • Elijah walked 40 days and nights to the Mountain of God
  • Ezekiel bore Judah’s sin for 40 days
  • God gave Ninevah 40 days to repent
  • Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by the accuser
  • After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to people over a 40 day period

Early in my walk with God, the idea of reading the Bible in 40 days morphed into a life goal. Early attempts when my kids were young fell prey to the reality of not even having “entertainment time” to sacrifice – the kids were my entertainment for many years. Then when they got a little older, chronic illness derailed me for a season.

Not to mention, I first tackled the task without any semblance of a plan or daily goals.

This year was different. Although I’m in school, my schedule is flexible. My kids are grown and either in college or beginning careers. My illness is under control and symptoms have stabilized. I actually have time to read for pleasure, so I just shifted that time to reading my Bible. I also prayed for a full week that the Lord would help me to not only do it, but pay attention as I read.

By His grace, I got through the entire Bible in 40 days, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Sunday, April 13.

The experience profoundly impacted my thinking on Bible reading. I realized how many connections I’ve overlooked because I read a chapter or two at a time rather than whole books. And I know of the few I noticed, there are several I missed.

Some of these threads, I documented on a slip of paper tucked between the pages for future reference. It’s a list I look forward to adding to and exploring.

I may or may not read through the Bible in 40 days again,  but I will absolutely carve out time to read larger sections – a quarter to half a book for the longer works; a complete epistle in one sitting (as they were meant to be read), ideally at least once a week in addition to my normal reading.

In between, I’m excited to pull those threads and follow them where they lead.

Now more than ever, I relish the astonishing fact that the Creator of all that is left this intricate, compelling, and beautiful Book so I can get to know Him here. The more time I spend in its pages, the more the Spirit helps me in “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).

Not only that, but also through His Living Word, God gradually restores in me the original design, transforming me from a wreckage of sin and sorrow, conforming me more and more to the image of His Son, and preparing me to spend all of eternity with Him.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in his work, Life Together, “The Holy Scriptures do not consist of individual sayings, but are a whole and can be used most effectively as such. The Scriptures are God’s revealed word as a whole. The full witness to Jesus Christ the Lord can be clearly heard only in its immeasurable inner relationships, in the connection of Old and New Testaments, of promise and fulfillment, sacrifice and law, Law and Gospel, cross and Resurrection, faith and obedience, having and hoping.”

Amen.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11, ESV

Christmas Adam Ruminations

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Today is “Christmas Adam” (because Adam comes before Eve, as my offspring have informed me). It’s not a bad time to turn our thoughts from the first, humble advent of Christ as an infant to the future second advent when He will come in unassailable power and glory. Indeed, speaking for myself, most of my bad attitudes or wayward thoughts can be corrected by this very meditation on any day, be it Christmas Adam, Christmas Eve, or any of the bothersome Mondays the calendar holds.

When I was teaching, I liked to end the year or semester (depending on the class) by challenging my students to ponder the upcoming main event of world history. I would read a quote from C. S. Lewis followed by a passage from Revelation, then encourage them to think of all their todays in light of the unknown Day when there will be no more choice, exhorting them to choose their allegiance wisely.

Shall we do the same here? I think we shall, if you’ll humor me:

In his radio-series-turned-book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

Christians think [God] is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.

I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world.

When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

A startling thought, but a necessary one. Though we may grow impatient, wishing Christ would hurry and return, wondering if He doesn’t notice the breadth and scope of evil in our world today, we ought not forget those we love – and even those we love less – who are yet on the wrong side of the thing. After all, He tarried long enough for us.

With this in mind, let’s take a peek at Revelation 19:11-16:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Wow. There’s no doubt His second coming will make an impression even on those who scoff at His first.

We are told in Philippians 2:10, “…at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…” With an appearance like this, I have no doubt of it. Even confident knees, secure in assurance of the love of their King, will grow shaky and buckle under such a raw display of power and majesty.

So my friends, on Christmas Adam, tomorrow on Christmas Eve, and on through the rest of this year and as long as the Great Shepherd waits for His sheep to respond to His voice, I beg you to consider the Babe in the manger who will one day return as the bloodied, preeminent, unconquerable conquering King.

And because I love you as He loves me, though I little deserve it, I pray you will bow your knees quite willingly now before He returns and you have no choice left.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
(Revelation 5:12)

Family Legacy: Ephraim and Manasseh

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Today I shall take a break from homeschool topics and explore an idea my Tuesday night group teased out at our meeting last week. We are going through Lois Tverberg’s fine book, Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus and had come to the seventh chapter about reading the Bible as a collective “we.” As we talked through the ramifications of historic concepts of family legacy, some fascinating ideas about Ephraim and Manasseh began to come clear.

I was particularly struck by the implied sacrifice & redemption story of Joseph’s two children who were born in Egypt. Perhaps I’m reading too much into the text, but I still wanted to share our thoughts and my further contemplations here and invite discussion. Does anyone else see a hidden gem in this very casual Scriptural mention of Israel’s adoption of his grandsons?

ISRAEL’S FAMILY IN EGYPT

And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are (Genesis 48:5).

In Genesis 48:5, an ageing Israel claims his grandsons as his own children, conferring his son Joseph’s inheritance on them and even putting any subsequent children Joseph may have under the inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh.

At face value, this scene has always struck me as a tiny bit odd. However, I believe this is because I’ve been reading the Genesis narrative under the influence of my own cultural understanding of family – that is to say, a very broken and disoriented American perception of family lines.

But when my friends and I dug into the passage with an eye to the redemptive arc of God’s covenant with Abraham to give his descendants the land of Canaan and to bless all the nations through Abraham’s line, we noticed a few more details.

Even though Joseph’s removal from the family was forced when his brothers sold him as a slave (see Genesis 37:12-36), the facts are he came to manhood apart from his family line. As a man, he was the second in command over a pagan nation and even had the daughter of a pagan priest as his wife.

And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him (Genesis 46:20).

Keeping in mind that Egypt is a type for the world and for bondage to sin (a topic you’ll have to delve into on your own to keep this post smallish), I began to see foreshadowing of both Moses and even tiny hints of the overarching redemption story ultimately fulfilled in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. Bear with me.

HINTS OF THINGS TO COME

Joseph’s two sons, like Moses, were born into positions of wealth and privilege. They would have access to education and likely even power and social prestige, given the position of their father. By adopting them, Israel was not only granting a double portion of the inheritance to Joseph, the firstborn of his beloved wife Rachel. He was also, in essence, requiring the boys to no longer identify with the wealthy and privileged, but pagan, nation they were born into. Instead, they would be associated with his lineage – the lineage of a humble shepherd, a lifestyle abhorrent to the sophisticated and modern Egyptians.

When Pharaoh calls you and says, “What is your occupation?” you shall say, “Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,” in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. (Genesis 46:33-34).

Did Ephraim and Manasseh then go to Goshen to live with their clan and be trained in the ways of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The Bible doesn’t expressly state this. Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned only once more in Genesis when we are told Joseph saw Ephraim’s sons to the third generation.

Here is where I posit their association with the rest of the Hebrew exiles in Egypt is implied: the next mention of Ephraim and Manasseh is at the census in Numbers 1, and they are mentioned later in Numbers when the promised land was being divvied up.

In between the end of Genesis and Numbers, the book of Exodus mentions that “the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.” Further reading reveals a new pharaoh came to power who did not know about Joseph (see Exodus 1). What follows is both oppression and enslavement, which must have included the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh if they were subsequently brought out of Egypt by Moses and given portions in the promised land.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

Since I understand the Bible to to contain historical accounts and demonstrates God’s activity through history to point to greater truths in His immense plan of redemption, I see a hint at the call on all of God’s people to hold lightly such items as worldly status, prestige, wealth, and all other transient circumstances and instead to give our all to the eternal promise of God’s covenant.

This call to align ourselves with God, accepting the terms of His covenant now offered freely to both Jews and Gentiles through Yeshua Messiah/Christ Jesus, is a call to die to ourselves daily and follow the Lord. It is a call to emulate both Jesus’s sacrificial lifestyle and His trust that the Father’s eternal promises are worth such light and momentary affliction as it may be to set aside honor, power, wealth, and other worldly gains for a few decades in order to secure pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

In the simple statement by Israel that Ephraim and Manasseh were his, my friends and I saw a glimpse at the narrative arc of the entire Scripture. We saw hints of the One to come who would lay aside all power and glory in order to live in a humbler station as a mere human being.

We saw a picture of alignment with God’s covenant that doesn’t make sense from the perspective of a strictly earthly life. Such alignment only makes sense if your trust in the covenant-making God outranks personal ambition. For the Christian, it makes sense if our lives do not end after the 70-odd years of these bodies but continue on for eternity. In the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, we detected hints of what it means to count the cost of discipleship; a topic Jesus Himself would speak of generations later.

And for Ephraim and Manasseh, it made sense because it wasn’t about their individual inheritance but about the inheritance promised by God to their family line; a promise that predated their little lives by two generations and would be fulfilled long after their bodies had returned to dust. Imbedded in this concept is a realization of the smallness of our individual lives and the grandeur of being adopted into the family of God.

For those of us who have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, our choice is no different. We live with the understanding that eternal life begins right now; that it does not begin at the grave but simply extends beyond it.

When this becomes clear, our priorities change. We begin to live for the future, making use of the temporary situations but not clinging to them because we know earthly power, prestige, wealth, and privilege are all fickle. We choose to build on the unchanging foundation of God’s glorious promise; a promise that will not fail no matter how much sacrifice, tribulation, or oppression we may have to endure in between.

We trust because we belong to something larger than ourselves, and we know He is worth every ounce of our trust and more.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance… But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:9, 13).

When Job Is My Portion

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

This past Saturday, I woke to one of Tennessee’s typical grey winter days. After reading my morning portion of the Word, I caved in to my Aussie’s pleading stares and vocalizations. A quick check of the weather app assured me the looming clouds would not spill over for “at least 60 minutes,” nonetheless, I donned my rain gear and set off with the furry victor happily trotting at my side. Since my portion is in Job at present, it seemed appropriate to me to listen to said book while I walked to enhance my morning’s reading, and I decided to backtrack and listen from Job chapter 1.

The weather app lied.

About a half-mile into my walk, a misty drizzle started. It was fairly warmish and the drizzle was light, so I decided to keep going. Besides, my poor pooch had already missed several walks this winter due to my state’s bipolar weather and my own health issues. As I passed the lake, I noted my friend the limpkin still inexplicably hanging out at the water’s edge despite being a good 450-odd miles from the northern edge of his typical range – not to mention last week’s snowpocalypse.

He stared at me as I passed, possibly wondering why the crazy human trudges through the mist and still stops to snap photos of him. Good question. I moved on, listening to Job’s lament and feeling a bit dissatisfied with my choice. But I kept walking.

About halfway through my short route, the drizzle picked up to a light rain. By this time, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had begun their potshots and part of my mind drifted to my own times of trial. The rain lent a dismal ambience to perfectly complement the audio.

When the light rain began to drift toward downpour, I debated the merits of fighting the rain for control over my phone’s screen to make a call. Instead, I put my head down and determined to finish the last 3/4 mile or so as quickly as possible. Then I saw movement. Through the raindrops coating my glasses, a familiar vehicle drew near.

My husband had noted the increase in damp and come to my rescue. Hallelujah!

The whole experience reminded me of a dark and dismal time in my life. Like Job, I’d lost a lot (though not all). The people I’d called “friend” abandoned me in my hour of need, and I felt myself alone, groping through a cold and misty waste with nowhere to turn. Then out of nowhere, as I trudged ahead in a grim and hopeless determination, my Rescuer appeared.

I found the Word of God – not just the Book but the Redeemer it speaks of: Yeshua Messiah, Jesus the Christ, Immanuel, God-With-Us. My Lord and my God. In my darkest hour, in abject fury and despair, I shouted my unbelief and unbelievably, He came to my rescue anyway.

He took me under the shelter of His wings and slowly began the work of healing my wounded heart, untwining the deeply-rooted sins that infected my soul, and cleaning up the mess I’d made. My journey since then has still had moments of despondency and pain, but I now have a safe and warm destination to look forward to.

Just as my husband picked me up and drove me home, my Lord and Savior is carrying me through the murk of life. And I know that someday, He will bring me Home. This is what I keep in mind when Job’s lot seems to be my portion. Even without the Book, Job himself clung to this hope and kept going.

My friend, so can you.

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.

(Job 19:25-26)

A Note to My Church Family

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

And he [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.

Colossians 1:17-18a

Hello, church family,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Heather Davis, and I’m one of many who call the Church at Station Hill home. I may have taught your elementary-aged child or preschooler on Sunday mornings or at VBS, or you may know me from another capacity in the church. Or you may not know me at all.

That’s kind of my point. I’m nobody in particular; just a church member like you.

Like you, I have many emotions about Jay’s candidacy as the next Senior Pastor at Brentwood Baptist. I have no doubt in my mind or heart that this is God’s will. I cannot think of a better-suited man to take this position. Nor can I think of a better Senior Pastor’s wife than Tanya. She has the incredible ability to support her man while keeping his hat size reasonable and his feet firmly planted on Earth.

I love them as a team and I love them as people. They are wonderful. I am going to miss them and their family, just as all of us are.

But.

Church, I want to talk to you a little bit today. I want to impress on you that we cannot be followers of Jay Strother. We must be followers of Jesus Christ.

If this is God’s church, it’s His choice who goes where – and when – and why. We need not worry about it because we know that He is good. We know that He works all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

I can tell you from experience, this literally means all things. It means pain. It means suffering. It means this great shaking up. It means joys and triumphs; it means trials and challenges. It even means devastation. ALL THINGS.

This is the amazing power of our God. He can even take our past mistakes and the sin He freed us from and work it for the good of those who love Him and for His church by opening avenues of ministry to those still captive. He fully, utterly redeems. It’s astonishing. That’s what I want us to focus on right now – how good our God is and how thoroughly we can trust Him.

Something I’ve realized over the last couple of days of reflection is how Jay – in true Jay fashion – has been subtly preparing us for this moment for some time now.

Our pastor has worked closely with our God, weaving hints and allusions to change and scattering into his sermons, working from passages God ordained ahead of time. By doing so, he’s helped ready our hearts and simultaneously given us an example of walking in the good works God prepared ahead of time for him to do.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

This is why we love his preaching so much. But it’s also why I know he is well-suited to be the next Senior Pastor.

So for now, I encourage us all to just come around him and his family, and show them love and support. When we get our next pastor, let’s show him and his family the same love and support.

I pray that our church will grow spiritually through this; that we’ll experience God’s goodness and sovereignty in an amazing way. And church, I pray that we’ll each lean into what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We cannot follow any human teacher or leader over Jesus.

I’ve had the privilege of sitting under the teaching of amazing and gifted teachers and leaders in my new life in Christ. These people challenged and inspired me, but I don’t follow them. I follow the Lord. And I encourage you to do the same.

Let me share with you that my experience with the Lord includes being saved from dark and horrendous sin as an adult. This was followed by decades of chronic pain and invisible illness, dealing with past and present emotional trauma, and things that honestly might surprise you. I can tell you that every bit of it has served to bring me closer to Jesus. How? Through His Word and through prayer. It really is that simple.

Church family, whatever we face, whatever lies ahead, know this: God is good. He is the One we need. He is our leader, not Jay.

If Christ is truly the head of the church, don’t forget that He is the one to follow. He has so graciously given us his Word. That is what I urge you to press into at this time. Get into the Word of God. As Jay has said so many times, he can’t fill us on Sundays; he can only make us more hungry.

For his sake, for the Lord’s sake, for your own sake – be hungry.

God’s Word is good. The love of Christ, the Word of God, the Spirit of God acting and moving in us – that’s what we are made to need. That’s what God designed us to crave.

And church family, I can promise you this: following Jesus isn’t always comfortable. Just like He’s shaking up our church right now, He will take you places you can never imagine and pull you way, way out of your comfort zone. I’m pretty sure He’s doing that now with Jay and Tanya.

Yet I can promise you this as an ordinary layperson who happens to love and trust the Lord – if we fully surrender and trust in Him, it’s going to be good.

Walking With the Lord

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

How are you doing during this COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine?

I won’t lie – I’m enjoying it. We have all our teens here under one roof, I’m starting to finally catch up on a decades-long sleep deficit, and we are blessed with a large neighborhood to walk in full of all that is blooming and green.

But I know this isn’t easy for everyone. Not all of you are introverts or ambiverts content to have alone time. Not everyone enjoys their family. And many are stuck in apartments and flats far away from anything naturally green.

So let me know how you’re doing. Seriously.

As for me, I’m enjoying another chronological trip through the Word. I’ve been in 1 Samuel the last couple of days. Today what grabbed me was Samuel’s apparent integrity.

At the very beginning of his call to speak for the Lord, God called out to the boy in the quiet of the night and Samuel answered Him.

And the LORD came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.”

1 Samuel 3:10

It’s interesting to note in ancient Hebrew, the word translated “hears” could also be translated “one who hears,” making his reply, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is one who hears.”

The root of this Hebrew word is the same root in the beginning of the Shema where it is translated, “Hear!”

In both the Shema command for Israel to hear and Samuel’s reply that he hears, the word does not merely refer to the physical action of soundwaves starting a chain vibration through the eardrum, malleus, incus, and stapes into the cochlea and then to the vestibulocochlear nerve.

In both cases, there is an implication of hearing with an attitude of readiness for action to what was heard. So when Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears,” he meant something like, “I hear and obey.”

It’s my prayer that if God calls out to us during the relative quiet of quarantine, we will answer Him with ears to hear as well.

Fast forward to the time Samuel appointed Saul king over Israel.

“Here I am; testify against me before the LORD and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you.”

They said, “You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man’s hand.”

1 Samuel 12:3-4

In this passage, Samuel is virtually handing off the government of the people to the newly appointed king. By her own request Israel is making the transition from theocracy to monarchy, and Samuel’s role is changing, too. Until this point, he had spoken for God directly to the people. He will now speak for God mostly to the king.

Wouldn’t it be something to be able to stand before a nation and ask them Samuel’s question only to have them answer with a testament to your faithfulness?

Again, I pray that the Lord will make us faithful in our integrity to others as Samuel was in his integrity before the people of Israel in the days before the first king.

Now if only the people of God kept a familiarity with the Scriptures, they would’ve known the standard their new king should be held to (see Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Hmm… seems there may be a lesson and a prayer for us in there, too…

Secretarial Duties, Leviticus, NYC, and Sabbath

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD… Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
(Leviticus 19:30, 20:7-8)

Hi. It’s been a bit since I’ve written, I know. My plan was to pour all my writing effort into a book I need to finish, and so I signed off around the middle of January while in the middle of a blog writing respite.

But of course, my plans and God’s plans differ from time to time. When they do, experience has taught me it’s wiser, safer, and saner to leave my plans where they fall and follow His way.

So the last few weeks, I’ve been filling in for the lady who works the front desk at my girls’ school while she recovered from surgery. This made the first full-time job (outside the home, anyway) since the birth of our now-19-year-old son.

It was terrific fun. I love the kids at the school; loved getting to know them better, loved working with the staff, loved being there.

Still, I’ll be glad to get down to business in March and finish the book. I hope to write some short posts here, too – one a week or so. But today is just a quick check-in; a hello, still alive, before I head up to NYC with the 10th grade class.

I’d like to take this little check-in moment to fill you in on my year so far. Our church is reading through the Bible chronologically this year, and I am loving it. Many days, I’ve both read and listened to the day’s selections – an exercise which seems to press the Word into my conciousness a little more deeply.

While this is not my first time through the Word chronologically, it may as well be. That’s what I love about the Bible. I can read it over and over and over again, and there’s always some new nuance or some truth I’d previously overlooked before to greet me. It has a quality of being at once both comfortably familiar and startlingly novel that I adore.

In the last week or so, two things have been impressed on my mind.

Well, let’s be honest. There have been so many more, but to keep this brief-ish, I’m choosing to focus on two…

Foremost is Sabbath. I hope to write more about this soon, but for now let’s just say I have been astonished at how much coverage Sabbath gets in the first 3 books of the Bible.

By the time you reach the point I’m at now – Numbers 6 – you’ll have read a reference to the Sabbath or the seventh day 79 times. Sabbath is also the only one of the Ten Commandments predating the Mosaic covenant.

Hmm. Maybe it’s important.

The other is a fun fact I learned just this morning. Out of curiosity, I counted and discovered the phrase, “I am the Lord,” is repeated in Leviticus 52 times.

I firmly believe the refrain exists because we need a continual reminder that GOD is God and we are not.

What are the implications of these two small truths? Profound. Enough to prayerfully consider for the next few days.

Lord, change us and teach us that You alone are God. Show us how to live like it each and every day, amen.

Tuesday Prayer: Wisdom

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Ephesians 5:15-17

All-knowing God, You are the Source of true wisdom, for it is by Your knowledge and power that all things were created. As the Beginning and the End, You encompass the fullness of reality – in fact, reality is Yours to define.

When we begin to think of You in this way – Your eternal magnificence, Your unfathomable power, and Your absolute sovereignty – we are overcome by worship. You truly are the great and mighty God who knows all and who works all things according to Your perfect plan. May Your name be forever praised!

Teach us to look to You and You alone for the wisdom we need to navigate this world and make the best use of our time. We confess our weakness before You; our tendency to get caught up in the “wisdom” of this world which is foolishness compared to Your eternal perspective. We take our eyes off of Jesus and we forget to keep our minds fixed on the things above rather than the things on earth.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:1-2

But Lord, remember that we are dust and that the events of this world seem so long and so very real to us as they happen. Have mercy and strengthen Your servants. Teach our hearts to see all of life through the lens of eternity and to redeem the time we are allotted, not using the minutes and hours for self-gratification but to bring honor and glory to You. 

You have given us the Living Word to keep our hearts in check, but again we must confess: Too often we neglect it, or we rush through it as a check-list item on our agendas rather than savoring the Word and ruminating on it throughout the day.

Lord, today we humbly ask that You will firmly plant in us a strong and growing desire for Your Word. Teach us to long for it, to meditate on it, and to cherish it. May it be that our first response to crisis or a need for guidance is to open the Book and search its pages for wisdom from You. May our hearts surrender to the truth we read there, holding nothing back.

Our God, make us a people of the Word, holy and pure before You and useful to You in this world. From this day forward, may it be that never a day passes but that we seek Your face in the pages of Your Word and in prayer, humbly bowing ourselves before the Throne of Grace.

And when we receive our marching orders, make us to set out with confidence, knowing that whatever may happen to our bodies in this world, we share in the victory already won by Jesus Christ our Lord. To Him be the praise and the glory in all things, amen. 

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:56-58

Tuesday Prayer: Joy

~ Heather Davis ~ 10 Comments

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

Psalms 16:11

Our God and King, You are our salvation and our very great reward. What a gift You’ve given us in Jesus! Of all the legends of other gods spoken of by man, only You cared enough to step down from Your throne, laying aside Your glory to confine Yourself to the limitations of Your own creation.

You alone, Lord, not only gave us commandments but kept them, living as man was designed to live – in perfect accord with and obedience to his Creator. Only You not only call for humility, You’ve shown us what true humility looks like.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

John 13:14-15

Among all false gods who require a price from mankind, only You deserve one. And only You paid the price Yourself. 

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 5:9

Forgive us, Lord, for taking lightly the awesome and unbelievable acts that You have done for us. Forgive us for forgetting whose presence we stand in when we enter the holy place to bring our prayers and supplications before the Throne of Grace. Where we have been careless, give us reverence; where we have been anxious, remind us of Your power and might. 

You are the Almighty God, the Most High who deigns to look upon us and listen to our childish babble because You love us as Your children. Let us never lose sight of the wonder of that fact.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

1 John 3:1a

Because of the sacrifice of Your Son, we may approach You with confidence in Him. If we approach in arrogance, teach us to approach You with respect and humility,  in trust and not in worry, knowing that Your promises stand forever.

As we draw nearer to You, teach us to love Your word as the very greatest gift alongside our salvation – the actual words and guidance of the Creator of the universe and the Author of our faith. Plant a deep and insatiable hunger for Your word within us and our families, and let us long to search its pages for the answers we seek.

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Psalms 119:92, 97

And as we grow in faith and trust, praying and thoughtfully reading Your word, let it be that we honestly find joy in Your presence and pleasures forevermore at Your right hand. Expose the temporary nature of worldly pleasures and fill us so with Your Spirit that our joy is nothing more than Your joy filling us and spilling out.

May it be that joy will spill out on others who need it today, bringing light and laughter into lives filled with darkness and weeping, amen. 

Tuesday Prayer: Two Advents

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 

Revelation 19:11-13

Word of God, on this last week of Advent, we look back at Your historical first coming; a time when You laid aside Your majesty to clothe Your splendor in the substance of Your own creation, being born as a tiny infant – the Son of Man. But there is more to Advent than the past. We also look forward to that great and future Day when You will appear as the conquering King, ready to reclaim the world You’ve redeemed and rule it with justice and equity.

Oh Lord, You are the living Word of God given to mankind that we may know of Your mercy and grace. You are also Faithful and True, the only just Judge who will one day mete out the sentence for all who have refused Your generous offer of salvation in the righteousness of the Christ. Yet for those who have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, there is no condemnation but only the imputing of His sinless perfection and a grace we cannot earn.

This Christmas season, Lord, help us to be mindful of the incredible wonder of this, the greatest Gift ever offered. May the contemplation of Your Son be larger in our consciousness than any baking, buying, decorating, or anything else. And as we contemplate His beauty, teach us to delight in Him more and more and in this world less and less. Indeed, Your word warns that friendship with the world is enmity towards God, so please show us where we need to reject the world’s way of thinking and being in order to fully embrace Yours.

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

James 4:4

Not only for ourselves, but for those who we will encounter this Christmas season, not only our loved ones, but our co-workers, those who we see in traffic, the clerks and waiters who serve us in our purchasing and celebrating, and even for our enemies or those who treat us poorly, remind us of the urgency of the message of Christmas. Remind us, too, how we once walked as people who were dead in our sins and give us compassion for others.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:44-45a

Break our hearts for those who stand condemned in this world and give us opportunities to share Your truth with them. Open our eyes to those who lack the hope of Christ to make life’s pain bearable. Even if they are hostile towards our efforts, still goad us to diligently pray for them even as we praise and glorify You by our actions, words, and choices in their presence. Lord, if we could ask for one more gift this Christmas, please give us the privilege of seeing many come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.