I love to put little marks in my bible when I come across unusual and seemingly unnecessary descriptions tucked in between the deep mysteries of God's Words. Sometimes I laugh out loud and wonder if God chuckled to himself as he decided what to include as God-breathed, perfect scripture. Let me give you a few examples.
1. "The power of the Lord came upon Elijah and tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran..." This makes me laugh every time because I can just see him with his hairy legs sticking out under his bunched up robe, booking it across the desert! Run, Elijah, Run! God could have just said, he ran. But, no.
2. "In that day the Lord will whistle for the flies from the distant streams of Egypt..." I love that God is the conductor of the universe and spoke the stars into existence, can calm the sea, move mountains, but whistle for flies? Once again. this paints such a comical scene for my imagination. A bit like an old Lassie episode, "Oh Lassie!" and he comes a runnin'! I just never thought of flies obediently coming when called.
3. "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion" Proverbs is full of great word pictures, but what dad doesn't want to have his daughter memorize this verse before she's allowed to date. My dad did!
4. And finally, this one isn't funny, but it caught my eye and made me think. Nehemiah was sent to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and scripture lists family after family working together. "Next to him...worked so and so, and next to him, so and so repaired..." and then in the midst of all these dozens of names, "Next to him, Baruch son of Zabbai zealously repaired another section..." How cool is that? God chose to point out that this guy wasn't only doing his job, but he did it with ZEAL! I want to be like this Baruch guy, who serves with such zeal that it is worth mentioning. He must have really loved his Lord. Don't you want that kind of vigor? I do!
We know God takes very seriously what His Word says. It's perfect! Jesus even says in Matthew 5:18, "Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Every word is intentional. It's just the words he was looking for to convey his message to us. God's Word is powerful! Still, sometimes I smile as I come across those unique spots and wonder to myself, why did you decided to include that? All I know is sometimes a tiny little word, like zealously, can challenge me to pause and think, "Am I zealous for you Lord?" And other times, a tiny word just make me snicker because God does have a good sense of humor! I love that!
(For those of you who would like to check and make sure I'm not making this up, here are the references to the verses above. 1. I Kings 18:46, 2. Isaiah 7:18, 3. Proverbs 11:22, 4. Nehemiah 3:20)
Oh, I love stuff like that! Given how spare Scripture is with details, it says so much when they're included.
ReplyDeleteRecently I noticed something about Isaiah 41:17-20.
When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them,
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water."
It took awhile before I realized, rivers don't go on heights. Fountains aren't in plains. Fountains are on heights and rivers are in plains. In other words, it's saying that God will put the water wherever he wants, even impossible places!
Thanks for sharing that verse! I had NEVER thought about that before. Don't you just love it when you have those ah'ha moments and the words just come alive in a new way? I sure do.
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