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Thursday, July 10, 2008

To Fight or Not to Fight

God puts things together all the time. A friend and I do Bible study by email, answering the same set of questions from the Serendipity Bible. Right now we are alternating between Deuteronomy and Psalms.

I was struck by the synchronicity between Deuteronomy 1, which recounts Israel's refusal to fight for the land of Canaan at Kadesh Barnea, and Psalm 3, which David wrote while fleeing (i.e., refusing to fight) his son Absalom (see 2 Samuel 15).

The lesson from Deuteronomy? The Israelites should have fought, because God commanded them to.

From Psalm 3? Not as clear cut. David was running for his life--but he also wanted to avoid a situation where Jerusalem would be put to the sword.

There are plenty of battles, but today is not always the right time to fight.

Right now my biggest challenge remains my battle with grief. I don't mean that I seek to vanquish it. Only time and God can do that. I mean that grief engages all my energy, faith, and arsenal of prayer and writing and friendship.

For now, God will call someone else to fight larger battles on behalf of His church and our country.

1 comment:

Mary Connealy said...

Darlene, Grief is physically exhausting. And insomnia comes with it a lot of times, worsening the problem.
And then to obey God when he calls you to something that takes more than you think you've got, very hard.