July 13 - I don't want to be one of those who "doesn't get it".

1 Chronicles 15:1-16:36

Romans 1:18-32

Psalm 10:1-15

Proverbs 19:6-7

I don't want to be one of those who "doesn't get it."  I want to be in on the joke, I want the inside scoop, I want to know what is going on.  I want to get it.  

Today's OT reading was a long one, and for all that was said about David, the person that struck me most was Michal, daughter of Saul, who say David dancing and celebrating, and "she despised him in her heart."  In 1 Samuel 18 we read that Michael was David's wife.  She must have loved David - she protected him when her father wanted to kill him.  And yet in today's verses, and in 2 Samuel 6, we see she did not like it.  NIV notes on 2 Samuel 6 suggest she didn't appreciate the significance of the event, and resented David's public display as "unworthy of the dignity of a king."  She didn't get it, so she applied her own interpretation to it.

Today's NT reading talks a lot about a people who do not get it, a people who have lost relationship with God and have, in its place, built up traditions and rules and laws of their own.  These are a people who, "although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him..." And so, "although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being..."  And the consequences of God's rejection, and His replacement with man as supreme being, were severe, the justification of sexual impurity prominent among those consequences.  Also part of the package - wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slander...not something we would wish on our enemies on their worst day.  Did they do this because they knew it was wrong?  I can't imagine they did; rather, I suspect that, having lost their connection with God, they came to believe this right.  In this way, there are churches able to justify gay marriage as "equal opportunity", and there will be people who will try to justify lynching a man acquitted in an unpopular verdict as "racial equality".  

In the face of such difficult situations, where earthly heroes find themselves at a loss (Dwayne Wade twitter comment: how do I explain this to my kids???), how do we respond?  How lucky are we to be able to cry out to God "Arise, Lord!  Lift up your hand, O God.  Do not forget the helpless." and "But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted, you consider their grief and take it in hand.  The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless."  We have a God to turn to, one we can count on, who will handle these situations in His perfect love, wisdom and strength.  And we can take heart, if we have a relationship with Him.  If we get it.

Which is why I don't want to be one of those who "doesn't get it."