April 27, 2005

It’s been an interesting week. I’m still working through Jeremiah. It hasn’t been very enlightening, but I did read about the Moabites and their impending destruction. They have no one to blame but themselves; as they trusted in themselves and not God and they relied on their own things, not God.

Sunday night bible study was really good. I’ve said that about all of our sessions, but I mean it. This book is deep and exciting and really makes me think. We read Esther 5 and 6; 6 is my favorite chapter. In this chapter, Esther goes to the king, is accepted and allowed to see him, and tells the king she wants to have a banquet for him and Haman. It takes a lot of courage to follow through with her plan. What a courageous woman. At the banquet she doesn’t tell Xerxes just yet what’s going on, but rather plans a second banquet. This, of course, gets Haman thinking that he’s found favor in the Queen’s eyes and is feeling very smug. He goes home and is absolutely insulted by Mordecai and complains to his wife. She suggests that he build a gallows to hang Mordecai the next day. He agrees of course.

Then Xerxes can’t sleep that night and has the chronicles of his reign read to him. He remembers Mordecai uncovering the plot to kill him and decides to reward Mordecai. This is my favorite part. It’s King Xerxes acting as a King and taking charge. Doing what needs to be done without consulting anyone and without asking permission.

He does, however, get Haman’s suggestion on how to honor the man who finds favor in the eyes of the King. Of course Haman thinks the king is speaking of him, so he suggests an outrageous, showy reward. Xerxes agrees and has Haman honor Mordecai for his service to the King. Haman goes home to his wife to complain of Mordecai yet again and his wife has no more pity for him and tells him that he’s not going to win this battle. What a wise and insightful woman.

So, this week we focused on risk taking. The whole story was about Haman and Mordecai, and had very little to do with Esther, and yet the study focused on Esther’s risk. How awesome. We talked about what risks we’ve taken and what risks God has for us to take in the near future.

The biggest risk I believe I’ve taken in my life was moving to California with Eric. We had no money, no job, no anything and we moved out here. It was the hardest thing we ever did. We left family and friends and everything we knew to start our lives anew. And God has seen us through all of it. Here we are, 18 months later with a good job, a nice apartment, a second car, Eric’s nearly done with his schooling, and we’re getting friends and active in the church. God is good.

But thinking of a risk God wants me to take was more difficult. I didn’t know at first. I honestly can’t think of anything God wants me to do as I think I’m still in the middle of my last risk. But then after listening to other’s a little more I realized that I’ve been praying about witnessing to my co-workers for quite some time. About a year ago I read “Out of the Salt Shaker” by Rebecca Pippert. It’s an awesome book and it really challenged me to witness more; but of course I haven’t even tried since I read it. But there’s a co-worker of mine who is really struggling in life. He’s had some physical/health problems; some car/apartment related problems; some family health issues; and just frustrated with life in general.

Apparently he finally broke down for good a couple weeks ago and just cried out to anyone for help. He’s been searching for some answers since. I saw him reading a book on spiritual poetry last week. And this week I found The Purpose Driven Life on his desk. I asked him about it; if he liked it and how it was working for him. I mentioned that I read it (or parts of it anyway) and that my church is doing a home group on it. I invited him to the home group, but seeing as he lives about 60 miles from the church and works at 5 am it wasn’t too practical for him to go. So I also offered to talk with him about it whenever he wants.

He agreed. He and I are going to meet for lunch to discuss the book. Actually, it’ll probably be my lunch and his after work time since we work opposite shifts, but we’ll still meet.

I’m nervous and excited all at the same time, but, I know God’s in control and will give me the words to say.

Monday, April 18, 2005

I read in my devotions today about Jeremiah (I’m STILL reading Jeremiah) and the warning he gave the Jews about escaping to Egypt in Jeremiah 44. God gave the Jews ample warning to be saved. He warned them time and time again. Finally He said, if you go to Egypt and continue to worship idols and sacrifice to false gods, I will allow you to be destroyed. They said, “We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm.” (vs. 17)

Well …… how foolish is that? But wait? Do I do that too? Do I tell God I’m going to deliberately do what I want to do regardless of what I was reading? I KNOW I did to my parents, and I know I did in HS and college. I can’t help but wonder how much do I turn away from God and deliberately turn to false gods and idols.

Chapters 3 and 4 were also very exciting. Mordecai refuses to bow down to Haman. We speculate that either he’s refusing to bow down to anyone but God, or because Haman is an Amelekite and they are enemies from a long time ago. Haman, when he finds out that Mordecai is Jewish, decides to have a personal vendetta against Mordecai --- he decides to write a decree to destroy the Jews. Haman casts lots to determine when to carry out the decree UNTIL the lots fell on the same month as Passover. He cheated the system to get the most out of his decree.

Then he went to King Xerxes and told the King what he wanted to do and Xerxes signed away without question. Either the king is VERY trusting, or VERY clueless. It’s also possible that he doesn’t know how to run a country, or so much has changed since he became king that he doesn’t really know what to do with these strange people.

When the Jewish people of the land learn about the decree, they all start mourning and praying and wearing sackcloth. At first, Esther seems embarrassed by her cousin, and wants him to wear clothes; but she then understands what is going on and understands whey everyone is so ‘put out.’ She is still hesitant to approach the king though, as no one is allowed to approach the king without the Scepter being extended to him/her. But she decides to pray and fast and then approach the King in God’s timing(or what we can believe is God’s timing).

We learn more of Esther’s qualities in this chapter. She is courageous, she is faithful to her cousin and her people, she has faith in God that He will save them, she’s compassionate, and she’s full of sacrificial love.

It’s no wonder why God put her in such a position.

The book we’re using is really great in that it doesn’t just skim the surface of the passage and point out the obvious. But rather it finds something seemingly minor in the passage and focuses on that and asks deep, personal questions about the seemingly minor part of the passage.

The focus of this week’s lesson was mentors. It was almost depressing for me because it was just one big giant reminder that I don’t have the mentor I had in college and that really is sad for me. College was an awesome experience for me spiritually and I would love to get that experience back again. I love my life right now and really enjoy being married and being a wife and having a job, but I really miss college and who I was in college.

We ended the session with a little liturgy and then each of us praying for a specific prayer request of our own and asking for God’s advice; because God is our ultimate mentor.

So I’ve had lots of stuff happen in the last couple weeks since I wrote last. First, I went to another bible study about Esther. It was on Esther 2; where Esther gets crowned queen. What an experience she had. It’s not really clear how she happened to get into the harem … whether she chose, Mordecai wanted her to try, or she was forced, but at any rate she was a member of the harem and she needed to do her best to honor God.

Mordecai told her to keep her heritage secret and not let everyone know that she was Jewish. Reasons for this were also not revealed, but we can speculate why. We thought that maybe her being Jewish would give her an unfair disadvantage to the other girls; or maybe if it was something she really wanted, she wouldn’t be allowed to ‘compete’ if she was Jewish.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of things she had to compromise in the year she was preparing to be queen. She had to eat non-kosher food, and probably didn’t get to rest on the Sabbath. Not to mention she wasn’t allowed to see her cousin Mordecai, the only thing that was of real comfort to her. She was given anything she wanted in her preparation for meeting the king, and she asked for NOTHING.

She had great qualities, in addition to her beauty, that probably really helped King Xerxes want her as queen. She was obedient, which we see with Mordecai, but also probably was evident in other activities and important to a king whose previous wife was rebellious. She was content; we see that in her not asking for additional things in seeing the king. She is also a loyal person. When Mordecai informed her of the plot he uncovered to kill King Xerxes, she was immediate in seeing the King about it and giving credit to her cousin. Esther was also very courageous, which we learn in chapter 4.

Monday, April 4, 2005

Yesterday was the first day of the new Women's Bible Study for our church. I was very pleased with the number of women and the diversity of women who showed up. We vary in age from 25 to 50ish. Our marital status is varied as well, from single and not dating, to single and dating, to engaged, to married, to married with children/expecitng, to married with grandchildren.

We also all have a varying number of backgrounds, spiritual and physical.

I'm very excited for what God will teach me and the friendships I hope to gain. I've really been lacking in friends, true, Godly friends, since I moved to California and I'm very excited.

We're studying Esther. The book we're using is by Judith Couchman, and it's called, "Becoming a Woman God Can Use." The book is neat in that it doesn't just ask us "duh" questions based on the passage, but also really makes us think about how that pertains to real life and today's woman.

Yesterday's study was about feeling in control of our lives versus being out of control. Vashti felt very out of control of her life, and when her husband asked her to parade herself (probably very immodestly) for all his drunken friends she refused. That took guts. But we don't know her motive for refusing, nor do we know his motive for asking. But we can speculate that he was being proud and she was sticking up for herself. Either way, it makes the King look bad, and right before he wanted to invade Greece. He responded by banishing her from his site; and also subjecting all the women in the land to being very controlled by their husbands in the future.

In a way, it was very fair, but at the same time, I expected her to be beheaded or something.

The book asked why God would use Vashti's bad circumstance to elevate Esther to Queen and really do Esther a great deal of good. I'm sure God had His reasons, but from Vashti's point of view it kind of was tough to watch I'm sure. Then again, maybe Vashti didn't want to be Queen anymore and didn't want to have to subject herself to Xerxes' iron fist.

So then we had to learn what things felt out of control in our lives. WOW! That was difficult. What in my life did I feel I had a grip on?

Marriage: OK
Job: good
Church: awesome
Money: WAAAAY out of control!!!!
School: I'm not there right now, but part of me wants to be and I'm not sure if God does
Family: I'm not near my family. It hurts that I don't have any friends

phew ......

We then spent about 10 minutes in genuine prayer for each other, and for other things in the world that seem out of control (war, Pope, US Politics, Cali politics, media, etc.).