Deep Calls

I love the way the book of  II Samuel ends. At first glance, it seems odd. It is the end of David's story, the last two chapters of two books that recount the rollicking tales of Samuel, Saul, and David. It almost seems like who ever wrote it ... I think it was Gad ~ Gad, the seer who had been with David absolutely since David's days in the cave of Adullam, and perhaps {and I believe} since the day Samuel anointed David as the king ... "forgot" to write a conclusion. He just got to the next to the last chapter, or the chapter before the one next to the last chapter and ... got busy and never quite finished. We do not get a story of David on his death bed, we do not get a story of David handing over the kingdom to Solomon...that is in other books. We get a few stories that happened at the end of David's reign after the failed coup by Absalom, we get a final Psalm written by David, we get David's "last words" ... a very short psalm, we get a list of D

There are people I would like to know...people who I will find, pull up a chair beside and spend a few courses and pots of tea chatting with at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Any of you who know me, know I will chat with C. S. Lewis, and with Tolkien. There is someone else I plan to get to know there: Gad. "Gad? Gad who? or ______________ Gad?" I can nearly hear you asking. NO...not the Gad who was the son of Jacob, the other Gad ~ Gad who was a seer in David's court. Really? Really!!  So, who is this guy? Well first of all, he was a seer. Seers are like prophets only instead of mainly 'hearing' what God has to say, they see what God shows them. And Gad, we are told In 1 Chronicles, wrote David's story. . . and check it out . . . a HUGE portion of the Old Testament is David's story. 1 Chron 29:29-30 As for the events of King David's reign, from beginning to end, they are written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the

When I read stories like the one in 1 Samuel 25, I find that I wonder more about what isn't said, than what is said. Have you read it...yes, you know the drill. Really it is short -- go now, read it. I'll wait. So! You have read it, and so I am not ruining any endings...Abagail marries David ~ very 'happily ever after'. Wouldn't you just love someone like...oh maybe Peter Jackson to do a movie of the back story? So, Abigail. She is someone you want to meet, right? This is -- to me -- very much her story. Yeah, yeah ~ David is in the story, and Nabal. But they are polar foils to this woman who stands very much at the center of this story.  Scripture says she was  an intelligent and beautiful woman , (1 Sam 25:3) If there were a movie, I would cast...oh...someone fierce like a young Katherine Hepburn or Nicole Kidman                                                                                        She had to have heard of David. I suspec

The dictionary wasn't as much help as I thought it might be when I looked up "convictions"; it says:                           a fixed or firm belief and gives such synonyms as :                        confidence , creed , doctrine , dogma , eye , faith , feeling ,   judgment call , mind , persuasion , principle , reliance ,   say so , sentiment , slant , tenet , view Those words are OK...but they feel a little "milk toast-esk" ~ have you had milk toast? When I was young, when we got sick we got milk toast...and it is just like what it sounds like ~ lightly toasted bread with milk poured over it. Yeah. As you eat it -- soggy bread not quite melting into the milk -- it looks like something to eat, but you realize it shouldn't be. The word BLAND is redefined by milk toast. So, convictions! The word itself comes from a Latin word that means to find guilty...as in convicted of a crime, the guilty convictions of a criminal. And it also mean

1 Sam 23:1-14  When David was told, "Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are looting the threshing floors," he inquired of the LORD , saying, " Shall I go and attack these Philistines? " The LORD answered him , "Go, attack the Philistines and save Keilah." But David's men said to him, "Here in Judah we are afraid. How much more, then, if we go to Keilah against the Philistine forces!"   Once again David inquired of the LORD, and the LORD answered him , "Go down to Keilah, for I am going to give the Philistines into your hand. "  So David and his men went to Keilah, fought the Philistines and carried off their livestock. He inflicted heavy losses on the Philistines and saved the people of Keilah. (Now Abiathar son of Ahimelech had brought the ephod down with him when he fled to David at Keilah.)  Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah, and he said, "God has handed him over to me, for David has im