Sitting on the fence

1Kings 18:21 Elijah challenged the people: “How long are you going to sit on the fence? If God is the real God, follow him; if it’s Baal, follow him. Make up your minds.”

I have a hard time making decisions. First, I hate to make mistakes, so I often over-analyze a decision to make sure I’m not doing the “wrong” thing. Then, I want to keep my options open. It’s as if I want to see the future, and know what all the ramifications of my decision are, how it’s all going to turn out, so I can do the thing that will get the result that I want. There’s a couple of problems with that. The first is that not making a decision is making a decision, the decision of inaction. I once heard a CEO say that he had been hired because he was a decision maker. For the health of this business, it mattered less that the decisions were right or wrong than that they were made. The paralysis that comes from deferring decisions is worse for the movement of the business (or sometimes, for my life) than making a few wrong decisions. Sometimes, you can’t really tell if a decision is right or not until you start to see it played out; that’s where I really learn about what works and what doesn’t.

The other side of not making decisions is the notion of keeping your options open, hedging your bets. This is what the Israelites, and specifically King Ahab, were guilty of. It’s appealing to keep options open, because it gives me the illusion that I can still choose and get one of the options, but in reality, I’m not getting anything until I make a commitment. I can’t give myself wholeheartedly until that happens, I can’t experience the fruits of my choice, I can’t really be in the relationship if I am still dancing around unwilling to make a commitment. God wants our wholehearted participation in the lives that God calls us to, our wholehearted commitment to walking the path of God’s heart.

Prayer: Dear God, I feel I am straddling so many fences right now. Help me to make some decisions, take some steps to clarify my commitments, my intentions, and at the same time let me allow You to be the guiding light in choosing my direction. Not my choice, but Your choice be done. Amen.

God's True Prophet

Numbers 22:18 Balaam answered Balak’s servants: “Even if Balak gave me his house stuffed with silver and gold, I wouldn’t be able to defy the orders of my God to do anything, whether big or little.”

Balaam is a prophet. He is a foreigner, not one of the tribes of Israel, but still a prophet, a prophet of the same One True Living God that Israel worships and that has brought her out of bondage from Egypt. No matter how much money you throw at him, he will only speak what God tells him; he is a man of true and profound integrity. We don’t see many like him in any time period, and people such as this are especially lacking, it seems, in the political arena.

I don’t know about you, but I am deeply humbled by this image of someone who follows God’s call so unswervingly. I have been lured off God’s path by so many temptations– by money, a desire to get along and avoid conflict, or just to get what I want – that I feel totally inadequate, undeserving of even calling myself a God-follower in the face of this level of commitment.

Balak, the king of Moab, has called on Balaam to curse the People of Israel because he fears their strength, but all Balaam can do is bless them. And I guess that’s a message I take, too. I may not be a prophet on the order of Balaam, but I am trying to speak the truth that God brings me, in the hope of being a blessing to others, and I think God honors that, and even loves it, as a parent loves a child’s indecipherable scrawl on a blank page and calls it art.

Prayer: Dear God, I see the integrity you inspired in your servant Balaam, and I know I can’t hope to attain his power. I offer you what gifts I have, and the truth and love of Your Presence which guides me and which I am hoping to make known to those who don’t know you yet, or don’t yet know you well. I ask your blessing on my work, that through me others may gain a glimpse of your Divine Presence. Amen.

God's portion

Numbers 18:29 This is your procedure for making offerings to God from all the tithes you get from the People of Israel: give God’s portion from these tithes to Aaron the priest. Make sure that God’s portion is the best and holiest of everything you get.

God is telling Aaron and the Levite priesthood how they are to handle the tithe that God receives from the People of Israel. They are to tithe that tithe, that is give 10% of the 10% that all the people give, and use the rest for their livelihood, since they have been given no land. They are not to give just any old ten percent, though, they are to give the best and holiest of everything they get.

God wants the best part of us. When I was a child, milk was delivered in returnable glass bottles, and since the milk was not homogenized, all the cream sat at the top of the milk; you had to shake the bottle to make sure it was distributed equally. God wants that cream at the top of the bottle. God wants your attention when you are at your freshest, brightest and most clear minded. That doesn’t mean not to go to God when you are struggling; it means to make sure that that is not the only time you seek God. When we only seek God in times of distress and trouble, we don’t develop a strong enough foundation in God’s presence, and may find God inaccessible when we most need the Sacred Presence. It is the daily practice of placing everything that I am before God, the best of what I am, my life and all that I do, which develops a spiritual foundation that is capable of sustaining me in difficulty.

Prayer: Dear God, Whatever I offer You today, let it be my best. Let me remember to honor You and thank You for all that I have with all that I am. Amen.

There'll be no glory

Judges 8:27 Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted itself there. Gideon and his family, too, were seduced by it. So Gideon has been faithful to God -- he smashed the Baal altar and tore down the Asherah poles (these are the holy places of the Canaanite religions) and then defeats the Midianites just as God commanded and ordained. He even refuses the people's entreaties to rule over them as King and says "God will rule over you." But he succombs at the end to this notion of reward. The people are dying to thank him, why not ask for a little gold, just an earring apiece, their pockets are overflowing with booty! And he fashions the gold into a sacred object. And then the trouble begins, because the ephod stops being an avenue to the divine and becomes the end in itself. I wonder what was most seductive about it: was it the skill of the craftsmanship, or just the shine and beauty of the gold itself? Here he had resisted so many temptations, but gets tripped up by his own handiwork. It's as if Gideon was vigilant against thinking he had performed these great deeds on his own, without God, but when it was all over and his guard was down -- the prize, peace in Israel and freedom from the Midianites -- was won, then he succombed to thinking he was pretty hot stuff. Like James Cameron, winning the Oscar for Titanic and succombing to this notion of his own invincibility. And how easy it is to fall into the trap -- you work really hard for something, and you're focused and disciplined and then you accomplish it, and then lose the very qualities that got you there, the focus and discipline and, in Gideon's case (and my own), honoring God first. Prayer: Dear God, It's easy to remember how much I need and rely on you when I'm struggling and to forget when I've accomplished what I want to how much you are a part of everything I do. Remind me to turn to you as faithfully in success as I do in failure, to rely on your guidance even more when I know where I'm going than when I feel lost, because I am more likely then to go off the rails and be seduced by my own knowing and power to move forward. Help me to lay every aspect of my life at your feet and seek your will especially hard when I think I already know what it is. Amen