June 19--What Friendship With God Is Like

I've struggled to relate to God as my friend.  it's easier to think of him as The Exalted King or The Kind Father.  Friend has been harder, but today's passages show me a side of him I didn't know before:  1 Kings 20-21, Acts 13:1-12, Psalm 137, Proverbs 17:14.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

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June nineteenth What friendship with God looks like I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. When Susan pulled my doll's thumb out of her own mouth, I saw that it was ragged. She chewed it to a nub, and I was livid. You chewed up her thumb? You know doll skin won't heal, I hollered. I'd learned this truth after discovering that doll hair doesn't grow back after I'd cut off all of Thumbelina's. Susan said nothing, not even I'm sorry, as she bolted out the front door and ran for home. Mama took sandpaper and smoothed the roughest edges, but the thumb still looked awful. I stopped calling her Thumbelina and just called her Lena after that, partly for grief and partly to make Susan feel bad. The next day Susan was back. We were at my desk sharing the chair, the coloring book, and my fresh box of crayolas. Mama believed in literally using up crayons before new boxes could be bought, so getting this new one for my birthday was my treasure. In my delight with new crayons I didn't see the storm brewing. Since I'm left handed, I colored the left side of the double pages whenever we colored together. We argued about the black that day and I won it by grabbing it. Susan returned silently to her page, absorbed in her turquoise elephant. I felt grouchy. Something was building, and I was particularly focused on putting the black back in the box in the exact spot it came out of. And then it happened, the infraction. Susan's elbow crossed into my territory. I was righteously rankled and hauled off and hit her, expecting the same submission as with the black crayon, but she bolted again and ran for it. I was alone for the rest of the day. I couldn't enjoy my dolls without Susan, and my cat was Awall. Elizabeth was at camp, and Sissy was shopping with her mother. Susan was my favorite playmate, but now she was gone, and there was no one else handy. The only things on TV in nineteen sixty three on a Saturday afternoon were bowling and golf, both a bust in my book, but I watched a little bowling and ate a carrot. Supper was awful. I hated turnip greens, and by bedtime I was absolutely miserable. When mamma came in to read and pray with me, I was melting down. Not that book, no, not that one either. The isolation of the day had done a number on me. I'd had far too much time to feel the feels all by myself. Mama said she noticed Susan hadn't stayed long, which was the invitation I needed to dump the load I was carrying. Her elbow crossed to my side when we were colouring, I said indignantly. And I'm still so mad about Lena. I hate Susan. I hit her. I don't remember what mamma said, though I remember that black crayon and turquoise elephant clear as day, but whatever she said, I bawled afterwards. The guilt of the day poured out and left me exhausted. I think we prayed. The next morning I was running to Susan's before anyone was up. I barged in her front door, up the stairs to her room, fell onto her bed, and hugged her awake. I said I was sorry for being so mean and hitting her. I was sorry for hurting her feelings about Lena so that she had to leave twice in two days, which wasn't uncommon come to think of it. I don't know how Susan felt afterwards, but I felt like the weight of the world fell off my back. Repenting was easy compared to carrying all that. Susan forgave me, and we kept playing daily while I kept struggling to be as kind a friend as

1 Kings 20-21

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she was to me. Today's passages point me to God's friendship, which, looking back, feels something like Susan's. The Old Testament chapters are first Kings twenty to twenty one. If I were God, I'd hide the story of Ahab and here's why. After a lifetime of egregious sin by the worst of the wicked kings of Israel, God forgives Ahab when he repents and delays the judgment he planned so that it doesn't happen in his lifetime. Won't a story of such scandalous forgiveness and grace like this be taken advantage of by those who want to whoop it up all their life and repent at the last minute? Probably. Won't others be tempted to think God is a pushover, a softy sentimentalist and ignore him? Likely. But won't you and I run to him every time we slip up? Because we know he's eager to see us, is delighted we came, will never turn us away. Amen. God says the reason he helps Ahab win his battles against Aram is because he wants Ahab to know him. The reason he sends his prophets to confront Ahab when he messes up is because God wants Ahab to repent so he can know him. And the reason God doesn't hide Ahab's story is because he wants you and I to know him too. And who God is is not who I thought he was before I read these two chapters. For all of Ahab's defiance against him, God is still after him, still involved, still wanting Ahab to know him. I find that to be extraordinary. I have trouble continuing in a conversation with someone whose eyes wander off. Imagine the courage it would take to keep reaching out to someone despite open hatred, rebellion, and rejection twenty four seven for most of their lifetime. I just can't imagine it to be honest. Idolatry is the source of Ahab's evil, and God wants to free him by teaching him who he is. So God rescues him from Ben Hadad, who demands his wives, his sons, and his wealth, and he gives him success in battle when the odds are decidedly against him. God also sends prophets to confront Ahab when he lets Ben Hadad live after beating his army, and when he lets Jezebel kill his next door neighbor over a vineyard. Even in confrontation, God's reason is clear. He wants Ahab to know him. Knowing who God is is what God says just before he gives the first of his Ten Commandments, and for good reason he says, I am the Lord your God, because if Ahab knows that God is God, then his chances of having a good life worshiping God only go up, and as king that will be good for everybody in Israel. Knowing God, fearing him, seeking him, worshiping him, all these are ways to say basically the same thing. It's the beginning of wisdom, the most important thing, the key that opens your life to everything wonderful and code for having God's favor, which means quote, lacking nothing, end quote. Knowing that God is God tempers everything that comes, from hard marriages to hard jobs, to hard circumstances to hard hearted people. I've had all of these at one time or another, and sometimes all at once, but believing that God is in charge, that he hasn't forgotten me, that he knows what's up, helps me hold on to him as I walk through the hard patches, and granted, I haven't walked as well as I might, but I haven't quit either, so that's something. When Ahab repents at the end of his life, God accepts it and says he'll delay the crisis that was coming. In the final days of this man's wicked life, repentance pays off. God isn't holding a grudge or hard to reach, even when it comes to a big fat sinner like evil old Ahab. And that is astonishing. No one is a lost cause, no one is given up on, no one's repentance is outside God's radar, no matter how long it is in coming, and if God offers forgiveness that never expires for even the worst of the bad guys, his forgiveness is still on the table for each of us. Shouldn't we keep the offer of forgiveness on the table for our bad guys too? The patience of God and his bottomless second chances are beyond understanding, but believing them melts me. And since God hasn't hidden Ahab's story, I know this to be absolutely true of him. If this is the friend God is, the one who never turns away, then this is the friend I want to be too. The friendship God offers never leaves the table. The New Testament passage is Acts thirteen one to twelve. The church meets together for worship and to fast for God's guidance, and the Holy Spirit tells them to commission Paul and Barnabas as missionaries. For all of Paul's status in this early church, he's connected, accountable, capable, and approachable. He's not off somewhere doing God's work on his own. He's a team player, not a free agent, and he serves and submits to his church

Acts 13:1-12

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leadership to learn what God wants of him. Paul says he's the worst among sinners, but he's also the most influential of the apostles, yet he serves in a local body of believers where he's prayed over and sent by them to share the good news of Jesus. So he goes with Barnabas and John to Salamis, preaches in the synagogues, and meets up with the governor who invites them over. It's here where Paul confronts a man named Bar Jesus, who's aptly named, since he tries to bar the governor from faith in Jesus. Paul calls Bar Jesus out and soundly for his evil shenanigans, but even here God gives a scoundrel a chance to repent. Paul doesn't soft sell his judgment or play nice, but in his confrontation Bar Jesus has the opportunity for repentance when he's struck blind. God doesn't give up on anybody, but he doesn't pull punches either. The friendship God offers connects us with God's people wherever they turn up. From Psalm one hundred thirty seven The writer grieves Israel's loss of homeland while their slaves in Babylon, their captors ask them to entertain them with the music of Jerusalem, but they refuse. These Hebrews are in mourning for what's happened after all. They're lamenting, not merry making. They don't put on a happy face and pretend they're not devastated. In fact, the writer imagines someone coming along and smashing the Babylonians' babies' heads on rocks. How about I put those words to music, he must be thinking?

Psalm 137, Prayer, Proverbs 17:14

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I have to wonder, is his desire for revenge like this all right? He certainly feels the freedom to say it, and there's no commentary in this psalm as to how God views it. When I read words like these, raw as they are, I feel encouraged since God doesn't edit them so they're nice for inclusion in his word. I believe he can handle my real self and all my rawness too. I can feel what I feel and bring all of it to him, not dress it up first. I can have a bad attitude and wicked thoughts and desires for revenge, and God can hear it all and accept me right where I am. While God is open hearted to his enemies and wants us to love them, he gets it that we need time to heal and want them to suffer too. The goodness of that makes me giddy. The friendship God offers gives me the freedom to be human. Prayer. God, you're the bestie who never stops meeting me wherever I happen to be. Thank you for your people who keep me on track. Thank you for never giving up on me. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 17 14, you can begin or end a fight based on your participation. Walking away keeps it from starting. Passages in First Kings, Acts, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartleaban, Robock.