Read the Bible

The book of Judges switches back and forth between mind-numbingly evil behavior and action-hero awesomeness. (If Judges wasn't in the Bible, your parents wouldn't let you read it.) Judges 11 relays to us one of the Bible's most disturbing stories. In Judges 11:30-31, Jephthah--one of the judges of Israel -- makes a deal with God: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering” (NIV). That sounds pretty good at first, until you think back to what the Israelites were supposed to sacrifice as burnt offerings: bulls and rams. Even if Jephthah, for some reason, let his bull stay in the house with him, bulls are not known to be attached to their masters in such a way that they come out of the house and low “Hellooo.” A ram might come out and give a friendly head butt. That might be irritating enough to make Jephthah want to burn that stupid pet ram. Maybe Jephthah's wife had a dog that constantly chewed Jephthah's sandals. Or, maybe Jephthah's sister lived with them. But dogs were unclean animals–unacceptable as a sacrifice--and human sacrifice was forbidden. Anyone who sacrificed a person was to be stoned to death. Unless Jephthah kept a bull in with his China, this story is not going to end well.

Jephthah won his battle against the Ammonites, and his daughter, his only child, came out of the house to greet him. Jephthah was heartbroken. He could not break his vow to God, so--in his attempt to please God--he sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering.

What is going on here? How could Jephthah think that this would please the LORD? Moses told them many times that God hated this practice. Judges 10 gives us some insight into Jephthah's warped mind. The Israelites were worshipping the false god of the Ammonites, Molek. And they worshipped Molek through human sacrifice. Now, Jephthah was worshipping the one true God, but he was worshipping Him the way the culture around him worshipped Molek. He had taken his culture's values and applied them to the LORD.

While we live in a culture that has a higher view of life than Jephthah's culture had, our culture is also more deceptive. It is easy to see the line between sacrificing a bull and a daughter, but even this bold line was blurry to a man living in that culture. Where are our lines? What accepted practices in our culture have we adopted into our lifestyles without recognizing what God thinks of them?

Clearly, we cannot rely on our culture's standards to lead us into a life that brings worship to God. But how can we know what God desires? If Jephthah could be confused by something so blatantly evil, how can a Christian living in today's Western culture keep from being deceived by the world? If only God had written down everything He wanted us to know. Wouldn't you read that over and over and over again, to make sure that your life is "holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1, NIV)? Wouldn't it be great to be able to read it and "not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2, NIV)? I would read something like that everyday, wouldn't you? 

Prayer and the Imagination

Celebration of Discipline is a book that I have been forced to read twice in my life. When you are forced to read something, you tend to go through it as quickly as possible. I speed read it both times, and I don't really know how to speed read. I picked the book back up and started reading it again the other day. One of the suggestions the author, Richard Foster, makes is to use your imagination while you pray. He says that while he prays, he imagines God doing the thing he is praying. For example, if he were praying for God to heal someone's broken leg, he would imagine Jesus coming into the room and straightening the leg out. As I read it, I thought, That's weird, and immediately tried it out.

Imagining God acting as you pray is not an exercise in positive thinking; it is a way to focus your whole mind on God. I have discovered that my mind does not wander as much because every part of my mind is engaged in the prayer, not just the part of my mind that makes my mouth move. Now, should you imagine God, or Jesus, and start worshipping the image in your mind? Obviously not. God is much more than anything you can imagine.

As a freshman in college, I did not have any friends on campus. I lived on campus, but I was still within 35 miles of my home and continued to go to my home church where I saw all of my home friends. I am also an introverted person who could not approach strangers at all, at that time, and would rather be alone than have to meet new people. I started to get lonely at school. I felt like I was stranded on an island with sharks in the water and snakes on the land. I started spending all of my leisure time with God. I imagined Jesus walking with me between classes. I imagined Jesus sitting with me at lunch. Did this time help me make friends? No. I walked around campus talking to myself; everybody thought I was nuts. But I look back at that time with envy for myself. Jesus was not just a metaphorical friend to me. He was my best friend because I focused my whole mind on my conversations with Him. I can’t wait to start doing it again. I’m married now; I can act as weird as I want.