ok, friends. i just posted for advent to blogspot and to facebook. and this man of God in first kings chapter 13. i couldn't...can't let it rest. thinking back to other studies i've done when there was a particularly harsh judgment given that may leave the reader with questions (i think back to the story of uzzah...see the post about hugging my bible/second samuel).
i ache to stay in this place of trust.
i think it is normal to read an account like this and think: the man was deceived and it was a mistake but ... punishable by violent death?
my mom was in a car accident in december of 1999. the only person we learned of that stopped at the scene of the accident said she was conscious for just a couple minutes and he heard her say, "i'm afraid." her car was pinned up against a tree and her body was stuck and she had a severe very severe head injury. maybe not like death at the paw and jaw of a lion...but terrifying to a petite woman at the wheel of a car pinned to a tree. why?
i've had 14 years to think on that one. (and two pretty intense years when she was still with us but not.)
she was living in kansas city, missouri at the time of the accident, and i went to be with her and with my dad for ten days. many hours in the waiting room at the hospital leant themselves to some talking time. dad told me at one point...updating me/informing me of what was going on in their lives...that they had been struggling and that mom would be going to counseling again. (still thinking that this accident was just a setback)... she had struggled much of her adult life with ups and downs emotionally/spiritually but had gained enormous victory during my teen years and i soooo learned from her life and faith walk. since the accident, i have wondered why. and...i remember after dad had moved her from kansas city here to winston-salem, nc having the knowledge that for the first few months when he was living with scott and me that he cried himself to sleep wondering why. she was no longer communicative and was not our "vangie." but she stayed with us for two years after the accident and i speculate that with each visit, she was in deep prayer. and i speculate that He took her to that place... and then, to heaven in december 2001 in many ways to spare her and to spare my dad and to spare my sister and me and our families from any ache and sorrow and angst of her walking through a funk emotionally again...and spiritually. i think...i think He wanted what was better for allllll of us. and that was the wholeness and health and crazy love of my dad's care for her those two years...while his hair grew long cause he told her that he wouldn't cut it til she told him to. watching him wash her hair and brush her teeth and shave her legs and all the other things nurses do for the unable...the beauty of a husband's love and the now knowledge of her place in heaven. wow and writing all that out makes me want to tell soooo much more and live back through and share all that we learned in those years but...back to first kings. ;)
this is what i think. i wonder and speculate that God knew what the man of God would experience if left to walk out the rest of his days. he must have been a pretty intense guy with such a strong prophetic gift...to hear the word of God for the king and to have the guts to travel to him and prophecy there something quite unfavorable for jeroboam. the guy carried out this intense mission and on his way home, he made a huge mistake. on the edge of the craziest most overwhelming day of his life...he disobeyed because he wasn't careful to see this mission through to the end exactly the way God had instructed. and this is what i wonder. the way it is written in the record, it seems that God was punishing his disobedience and yeah, he was. he allowed him to die because he wasn't careful. but i see mercy in this act. i wonder, just like my mom, if God knew the man couldn't be in a healthy place mentally or emotionally for the rest of his days...thinking that he screwed up the most important mission and purpose of his life. i wonder if he was sparing this intense man from guilt-filled sustaining thoughts...from beating himself up for years to come...from the intense pain of his perceived failure. and...this is just speculation of course...but there's so very much we don't know...that we can't know about why things happen that God allows.
i see mercy in this. and with each story that i read. with each life experience and stress and mystery and question...i long to trust my God who is merciful and just and faithful. and He will allow an abrupt ending or a job loss or an accident or even a death if it is for the good of those it touches.
He is good. and i trust God who allowed an unnamed man in first kings to die at the jaw of a lion.
and was going to end it there but looked for a scripture and immediately providentially found...
this: ....................isaiah 53:10-11!!!!!! but the Lord was pleased to crush Him. this is prophecy about Jesus.
pleased? what...
as a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, my Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. and verse 12... He poured out Himself to death... He Himself bore the sin of many. God was pleased to allow this death... even death on a cross (see phil. 2:7-8!) the death of His Son. for me.
thank You, Lord. the ultimate measure of mercy though it cost His Son's life on a cross. thank You, God, for being pleased to crush Him. and for indescribable and beyond-our-understanding acts of mercy. let me always allllways see You as good. because You are... sooooo very good.
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