April 2--What Makes Every Detail Significant

While I tend to skim across the details, some have derailed me, like the time I tried to get my warranty service to pay for 2 new HVACS.  Today's passages direct me to the One who cares about details, so I can care about them, too:  Deuteronomy 21-22, Luke 10:1-24, Psalm 74, Proverbs 12:11-12.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Deuteronomy 21-22

Luke 10:1-24

Psalm 74, Prayer, Proverbs 12:11-12

SPEAKER_00 0:00

April 2 What makes every detail significant? I won't be reading the scripture references for those. Please check the written post. Along with being our daughter in law, Lollybell is a forest elf, a sea nymph, a water sprite. The home she's built with our son includes collections of things she's found as she makes the rounds wherever she happens to be, whether woodland, creek, or ocean. When she first joined our family, I scratched my head over some of her treasures, a bit of turtle shell, a feather, a leaf, a snake skin. But as they've piled up, I've learned to look closer and appreciate the tiny things I've never taken time for. She sees a piece of driftwood and delights over its angles and arches, its weathered roughness, its holes and holiness, so I'm learning to see it this way. She notices the willowy bug skating atop a puddle, the curve in a folded fern frond, the speckles of a quail egg, so I've begun noticing them. She photographs puppy fur, the light play in her living room, the landscape she watercolors in such a way that I see the beauty too. When someone you love finds joy in something, you can't help but find joy in it with them. Their notice tethers your notice, their delight becomes your delight, their value for whatever it is supercharges it for you. Today's passages say more about what makes every detail of living significant. The Old Testament chapters are Deuteronomy twenty one to twenty two. Details even if you're good at keeping up with them, they can drive you nuts. I had a little panic over the details when I first read these chapters, like what do I make of all this random stuff? Because these chapters cover a wide range of issues thrown in one big pot of commandment soup. There are some that are very personal and some that involve the community, some that require swift justice, and some that require neighborly kindness. And reading it over I see that God has strong opinions about how his Ten Commandments play out in the affairs of everyday living. He's concerned about all aspects, public and private. He doesn't mark out the Sabbath as his day and let folks figure out how they want to live the rest of the week. Our culture has coined the terms sacred and secular as if there are whole pieces of life that have nothing to do with God or faith, such as education and health care, building roads and paying taxes. But this is not the way God sees life. His concern for even the little things charges all of it with importance, from driving a truck to designing an office to arranging flowers, to changing diapers. Tank garbage collection, for example. I realized the importance of it when hours recently stopped, and when the hurricane devastated North Carolina and grocery shelves weren't restocked, I realized the importance of truck drivers. There are services you just can't do without, and these are two of the essentials I never appreciated before. God's instructions for what to do when a dead body was found had the judges and leaders of nearby towns getting together with the Levitical priests to resolve the issue. There was no separation between what was considered civil and what was considered spiritual. Priests joined in with leaders and judges because quote, God has chosen them to serve him in these matters by settling legal disputes and violent crimes and by pronouncing blessings in God's name, end quote. God's priests were involved in every aspect of living because God was, and they were his representatives. In these chapters God's got instructions about all kinds of topics, and some I'd never expect to be in the Bible, from which fibers to use when making fabric to how to dress and where to put tassels, from giving the firstborn's inheritance to your unfavorite wife's son, to handling the son who was only and always rebellious, from respectfully bearing a body hung from a tree to finding a suitable wife among prisoners of war, from how to handle a bird's nest with babies, to how to safeguard against workmen falling from your rooftop, from how to plant and plough your crops, to handling a neighbor's lost or injured livestock, from how to deal with accusations of non virginity, to how to handle rapists and their victims. God cares that the way we live respects animals, respects the land, respects people, and respects him. Nothing is inconsequential, nothing is beneath his notice. We can't extract something from his commandment soup and say this one ingredient doesn't matter to him. All believers are considered to be God's priest today, carrying his light and love everywhere we go, everywhere it's needed, in the courtroom, in the classroom, in the nursery, in the prison. There's nowhere that God is not actively interested, and that means everything you and I do matters a great deal to him. Will we do the job he gives us out of duty or delight? Will we serve, trusting that our service is seen by him and is therefore important? Will we use the influence he gives us to be his hands and feet for others? As we go about living in the sphere he's put us in, will we let his atta boy or atta girl be enough for us? God rewards our service with more of himself and more of ourselves. There's nothing better than having God's presence inside us, warming and guiding us, making us more ourselves than we ever knew we could be. Jesus said, quote, Do you want to stand out? Then step down, be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you, but if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty. Every detail of life is significant because God Himself cares about every little tidbit. The New Testament passage is Luke ten to twenty four. Jesus sends out seventy of his followers and pairs to the towns he intends to visit to heal the sick and to tell everyone who listened that God's kingdom is right on your doorstep, end quote. When his disciples reconvene afterwards they're triumphant, astonished that they were even able to cast out demons. Jesus says he's not surprised that they have authority over every evil, but that's not the thing that should impress them. The really big deal to get excited about is that they have God's authority in their lives, his presence with them, because quote, it's not what you do for God, but what God does for you. That's the agenda for rejoicing end quote. God's salvation in Jesus is the thing worth marveling over. It's a salvation unique to our situation and tailor made for each of us. Our ability to respond to Him is marvelous too. What He has done is the thing that should give us courage, give us joy, give us meaning, does it? With this shift in our focus we can stay out of the trap of both extremes, of arrogance, of condemnation when we size up ourselves. I've struggled with that just this morning. I woke up believing I couldn't write one more word about the Bible. Who do I think I am anyway? What do I have to say that's worth reading? But then I remembered that writing for this blog was never about me. It's about what God teaches me, and with that monkey off my back and on his, I felt free to read my Bible and start writing again. Every detail of life is significant because God Himself is with us and working in us as we live it. From Psalm seventy four. Ever wonder if God can handle your snarky side, your unbelieving go ahead, God and amaze me side. This psalm made the cut to be included in the book of Psalms, and I love it because the writer lets us in on his real feeling when things go very badly. Asaph the writer describes the destruction of God's temple, either the one Solomon built or the one reconstructed afterwards. Either way it was a time when God left his people defenseless against their enemies because they left him first and often. Regardless of why God's turned away, Asaph calls on him to remember his people and his promises and to do something Asap. He's got the guts to accuse God with questions like quote, how long are you going to sit there with your hands folded in your lap? He's pushy and insistent because he knows who God is, the one who saves, the one who owns the day and night and puts stars and sun in place, the one who's their only hope. His cries of panic and terror and where the heck are you are honest. In the heat of the moment, when the can hits the fan, we don't have to talk nice to get God's immediate help and attention. Real pleas from our real need get heard and answered. They're even considered holy enough to be included in his book. Every detail of life is significant because God almighty can handle even the raw stuff we sling at him. Prayer God, I felt scattered when I started this morning, but settled here at the end. Knowing I can talk to you about anything anytime and not even nicely feels like relief I can feel cleared down to my feet. Thank you for your care that goes this deep. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs twelve, eleven to twelve. The one who works the job has food to eat, the one who runs after dreams goes hungry. What the wicked wants eventually falls apart, while what the righteous builds is life and more life. Passages in Deuteronomy, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve to Bartleaban, Roebuck.