Deep Calls

Elisha was old when he died. I suppose we could do the math, but he was anointed as a prophet sometime during the reign of Ahab, (? years), then there was Ahaziah    (2 years), then Joram (12 years), then Jehu (28 years), then Jehoahaz (17 years), then he died sometime during the reign of Jehoash. That makes 60+ year of ministry -- say he was 25 or 30 (could have been) when he was anointed by Elijah = 85 to 90+ years old when he died. And my favorite favorite favorite OT story is the few short verses about what happened after he died. I KNOW! I do say "favorite" a lot with Elisha...but all the stories about him are really great and I really love them. His miracles are crazy and sometimes funny and wild and unexpected. He is saturately anointed. But the best / craziest / funny / bizarre / wild/ unexpected/you have got to be KIDDING me! story of them all!!!   is what happened after he died.  It is breath-taking, if you stop as you read it to th...

I sit, as I write this . . . OK, type this, I don't write in the strictest sense of the word, I guess . . . and munch on toasted rosemary-garlic bread. It is different today than it was 2 days ago, when it came fresh baked from the oven, when the warmth from the baking caused the butter to melt and soak in, igniting the garlic and rosemary oils anew. OH! That first bite, when the kitchen still smells like fresh baking bread ~ all yeasty-enticing.  "YUM" -- seriously does not cover it! But I like it all over again, now days later when I cut thick slices, toast it and butter it and eat it with fresh coffee.  As much as I enjoyed it ~ it is gone now, the bites lasted as long as those sentences above ~ I just wanted it. When I made it I wasn't hungry. I just wanted something to go with my coffee. They are different: hungry and want. It made me think about "hungry". Hungry is kind of fierce. It drives. There is agitation to it. When I think of 'hungry...

How does GOD win a war? 2 Kings 6:24 - 7:20 Do you want suspense? It's in there.    Do you want tragedy?  It's in there. Do you want drama?  It's in there.    Do you want mystery?  It's in there. Do you want intensity?  It's in there.   Do you want special effects? It's in there.     Do you want comedy?  It's in there. Do you want justice?  It's in there?    Do you want good story?  It's in there. Do you want characters? It's in there.  2 Kings 6:24 reads: Some time later , Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. "Some time later . . . ? After the last story, he doesn't seem clever to me...but at any rate ~ Ben-Hadad lays siege to Samaria, and it was a very effective siege. Slowly the supplies run out and there is such extreme poverty and starvation that two women decide to eat their own children. The horror of it is more t...

2 Kings 6:8-23 Really!!   This is a story worth reading! When I read it, in my imagination, I see men -- old men who are old friends -- surrounded by their neighbors and their now grown sons and their grandchildren. It is late in the evening, after dinner and as they sit around the fire, wine in hand, they are reminiscing about a time they shared -- the retelling is a mix of heads shaken in awe, in wonder -- and loud guffaws, the kind of laughter where you can't quite breathe for a minute, where tears course down your cheeks. The story is punctuated by shouts of "NO!" followed by eruptions of hilarity, then by whispers of "no" exhaled in awe. This story is so shocking and odd -- it is like God deciding to have a good laugh while he deals with Aram ... AND with Israel.  So the story and my take on it : OK -- Aram is at war with Israel and sends the army to attack. But ~ EVERY TIME Elisha goes to the king of Israel (Jotham, though he was not named) and tel...

Chapter 6 of 2 Kings begins with a little tiny story. It is tucked in between the story of an important general from the ENEMY getting healed of leprosy and battles between Aram and Israel and all the attendant cool miracles. It is about a man and his neighbor's ax.  The event, while incidental, is shocking and huge. It must have been a miracle remembered and retold in awe filled voices around tables at night after dinner when all the "do you remember when" stories are bandied about. The "who" is missing entirely -- we do not know any names ... except of course Elisha's. There is no national consequence, no pithy moral beyond 'be careful with things you've borrowed'. It is a story of kindness -- and wonder. So some of the sons of the prophets want a new place to live. People marry, have children. Soon you need a bigger place. The men decide on a building project and ask Elisha to come along and he does ( good thing! ) While they are building...

( You can read the story : 2 Kings 5:19-27 ) - - - - - " But that wasn't the end of the story, was it, Uncle Gehazi? " " No, Sweet." said Gehazi absent-mindedly scratching at his arm. He sat heavily in the chair next to his niece Hadassah. "No, not for me." "You went after Naaman, right? Why? I have always wondered." "I have no good reason to tell you. It was stupid -- I suppose . . . greed, plain and simple. And I learned my lesson  --  too late -- but I learned!" "Can you tell me the story?" "Ah!" Gehazi chuckled ruefully, and poured a glass of wine. He sat and stared out the window a long while, his eyes looking down the road into the past. "It galled me -- Naaman and all his men so finely dressed, bearing wealth untold. The silver is what caught my eye ~ and my heart, I think. The sun hit it as Naaman laid it out before Elisha. I remember my breath caught. When he brought out the silver and...

Naaman? At the wedding supper? But, you say, he was a general in the army of Aram ~ the enemy! Yeah! OK...this is ~ as the title told you ~ a story of evangelism and conversion. The story is in 2 Kings chapter 5...go ahead. Go read it  ~ I'll wait. (silent musical interlude while you read) Done?  Good! OK... Evangelism : I am going to digress for just a bit to consider that word. It actually comes from two Greek words -- 'eu'   which is a prefix meaning true or genuine , and 'angelos'   which means messenger. Add the 'ism' to those parts and you get 'the delivery of a true or genuine message' . Now, of course, the usage and context for this word is predominantly Christianity and refers to leading people to a saving relationship with Jesus by delivering to them THE true message of the gospel (which means, by the way, "good new") Now most of you are likely saying, "yeah duh! We know  that!" But I wanted to emphasize the wo...