“King David said, ‘There have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint [Solomon] king over Israel…And the king bowed in worship on his bed and said, ‘Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who has allowed my eyes to see a successor on my throne today.'” 1 Kings 1:34a, 47b-48

“David purposely called three specific men to escort the new king Solomon to his rightful place of authority.  Nathan was the primary prophet of the day.  Zadok was the priest, and Benaiah was a mighty warrior.  For the nation to be strong, all four areas of authority needed to be present: prophet, priest, warrior, and king.  Interestingly, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will ultimately fill every one of those positions.  All authority has been given to Christ! (Matt 28:18)  Under one Head, all nations will finally be unified.

Solomon is not described like Absalom and Adonijah, handsome and obvious choices for a would-be king.  He may not have been the natural choice in the eyes of men.  But he represented God’s divine mercy.  He was the embodiment of second chances.

I find enormous security in the consistency of God.  He is always merciful.

[Verse 47] records the last time God used the word ‘king’ in the Book of 1 Kings in reference to His beloved David.  David’s rule ended just as it officially began.  His stiffened body bowed before God on his final day as king with the same abandon he demonstrated when he danced through the streets of Jerusalem.

David’s actions were often contradictory, but one consistency he wove throughout his life and reign – he was a man of worship, a man after God’s own heart.”

I found out yesterday that my favorite local health food store is going out of business.  They just can’t keep up with the bigger health food national chains that are in town.

They’ve been around for 42 years.

It’s so sad to me.  Our grocery budget doesn’t allow me to shop there all the time, but I love to support them with several of my regular purchases. 

And now they’re going out of business.

My first real look at shopping local and the effects of big chain companies started with 7.  Waste week was really hard for me.  For one thing, I love Ziploc bags.  Oh me oh my.

But for another, I was justifying some of my wasteful, consumptive habits. 

It was eye-opening to get serious about some of them. 

Jen’s family adopted the following habits for a month:

Gardening
Composting
Recycling
Conserving Energy and Water
Driving only one car
Shopping thrift and second-hand
Buying only local

Our family had a history of gardening and composting (though just this year are we getting reestablished at this in our newer house), recycling and shopping second-hand.  But we drive two cars quite happily all over creation, use disposable products (including more disposable diapers than I care to admit), and shop at big chain stores which can affect small businesses and encourage poor business practices.

For our Waste Week, our family adopted these:

Flush only when necessary (“if it’s brown, flush it down”)

No paper products (cloth napkins, towels instead of paper towels, cloth diapers only, remember to take cloth grocery bags into the store, etc.)

5 minute showers (and turn off the water when shaving)

Conserve electricity (no space heaters, bundle up instead of turn up the heat, no white noise machine at night, turn off lights when not using them, etc.)

Tupperware instead of ziplocs (gulp)

No fast food (paper wrappers, plastic utensils, napkins, bags, etc.)

Most direct routes when driving (notice we didn’t give up our second car!)

(Also notice we didn’t qualify shopping local…I didn’t know what I was doing in this area…still not sure actually.)

Of course, all of this could quickly turn into legalism, which is only concerned with external behaviors.  But we wanted to be challenged with our habits and then examine our hearts.  There is no reason we as children of the Creator shouldn’t take care to steward His beautiful creation.

And here are the kinds of things I was reading throughout this week:

“Few of us actually rely on the land we can see and touch.  We don’t feel the repercussions of deforestation.  We don’t swim in the ocean’s trash swirl.  We get our water from nine faucets in our homes.  Our pets aren’t going extinct.  Crop failure doesn’t affect us.  Our grocery stores are infinite.  Oil consumption?  Who cares?  There is always gas at our pumps.  Well, maybe…

Presently, human demands on the world’s natural capital measures 30 percent more than the earth can sustain.  Global consumption of natural resources far exceeds the earth’s regenerative capacity.  We are borrowing from our natural capital at an entirely unsustainable rate.  Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles and our economic growth by drawing – and increasingly overdrawing – on the ecological capital of other parts of the world.

‘If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles,’ according to World Wildlife Fund International Director-General James Leape.

America’s global footprint is made up of millions of people like me, making choices that affect the planet, getting defensive when the rest of the earth’s citizens quietly say, ‘Please.  Please stop.  You are deficit spending our shared resources and there is no bailout if the earth’s systems collapse.'”

The impact of environmental degradation falls most heavily on the people who are least able to mitigate these impacts – poor and vulnerable populations.  It also disproportionately affects fragile plants, animals and ecosystems.

[On her wrap up of the month]  My land, do we have far to go!  My hypocrisies are too numerous to count, but this month birthed something unmistakable: I’m done separating ecology from theology, pretending they don’t originate from the same source. 

‘The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters’ (Ps 24:1-2).”

(The 7 Experiment, pgs. 114, 115, 118, & 124)

All of this could turn into guilt-ridden anxiety.  I so hope it doesn’t.  I could list all our hypocrisies but I won’t.  I still have a lot of the same questions I had in this post.  But there lots of things we can do that are the “next right thing.”

We can join a CSA to support local farmers and get fresh produce that is not chemically treated.

We can try our hand at a garden (says Jen, ‘We were total morons and still managed to grow food, so please don’t disqualify yourself because you have a personal history of murdering plant life.’  Also, one year we did a shared garden with our neighbors – a great way to include others in your life and share some of the weeding!)

We can support local businesses

We can pay the extra $3 a month to get curbside recycling and change our trash habits. 

We can share hand-me-downs with others, shop garage sales, make a habit of giving away things for others’ sakes.  (I know so many people who do this with such open hands…inspiring.)

We can buy more bulk items to reduce plastic consumption

We can carpool or walk

We can put a brick in our toilet tank so each flush takes one brick’s worth less of water.  Maybe two bricks?

We can line dry clothes instead of use the dryer.  (My sweet friend does this on a regular basis overseas.)  Or just stick them in the dryer for a few minutes when they’re dry to get the stiffness out. 

We can trade in a car for a more fuel-efficient model

We can buy less Big Ag products and more local in-season produce

We can send reusable containers to school with our kids’ lunches

We can get off marketing lists that send you excess paper and unsubscribe from catalogues

(Lots of these ideas are from 7 pg. 122)

What do you think?  Have you tried any of these things?  Does it seem like something worth our while as Believers?

“Whatever our position in life, if our lives and works are to be of the kingdom of God, we must not have human approval as a primary or even major aim.  We must lovingly allow people to think whatever they will.  We may, if it seems right, occasionally try to help them understand us and appreciate what we are doing.  That could be an act of love.  But in any case we can only serve them by serving the Lord only.”

– Dallas Willard

Love each other as I have loved you.

Jesus, John 15:12

“David was extremely thirsty and said, ‘If only someone would bring me water to drink from the well at the city gate of Bethlehem!’  So three of the warriors broke through the Philistine camp and drew water from the well (2 Samuel 23:15-16).”

“God led David to victory through all four battles mentioned in 2 Samuel 21:15-22, but He brought victory to David through someone else.  He saved David, all right, but He purposely made him dependent on someone else.

Several wonderful reasons might exist for the method God used, which we can pick up by reading through the list of David’s mighty men:

1.  For the sake of the people – Israel did not need David to be like a god to them.  He could not deal with being put on that kind of pedestal or subjected to that kind of pressure.  He was bound to disappoint them.  God will never allow any of us to be the only one through whom He appears to be working mightily.

2.  For the sake of King David – God protected David by not always letting him be the hero.  He gave David a few heroes instead…He humbled David and made him depend on them for his life.  None of us will escape this important life lesson.  God will force us to need help.”

From my study this morning.  I have been given a few heroes myself.  Women it is really hard to imagine not living life with at this point in my journey.  We help each other raise our kids, work through tough emotional times, encourage each other on in relationships.  I call them my people.  Not because I don’t love anyone else, but they’re the people God has given me right now to walk closely with.  I am loyal to them.  I depend on them in the healthy (I hope) interdependent way God designed. 

We help each other in this journey to simplicity of heart.  Sharing life with them is one way God has used to help us out of some of the consumer mentality.  I like how Jen said it in Spending Week of The 7 Experiment:

“This month was the hardest for me.  Checking spending – big, casual, small – was inordinately hard, indicative of what I cherish  The difficulty level was proportional to my entitlement…Vast consumption is so ordinary, that its absence was shocking…I’m missing the convenience of consumption, but I’ve missed the camaraderie more.  I’ve created conjoined twins out of buying and connecting. 

Eating a meal in a restaurant is one thing, but friends padding around barefoot in your kitchen and chopping carrots for your soup and sipping coffee on your deck is another creature altogether.  This exits the expediency of consumerism and enters the realm of hospitality.

There is something so nourishing about sharing your living space with people, where they see your junk mail pile and peewee football schedule on the fridge and pile of shoes by the front door.  Opening your home says, ‘You are welcomed into my real life.’  This square footage is where we laugh and hold family meetings and make homemade corn dogs and work through meltdowns.  Here is the railing our kids pulled out of the wall.  This is the toilet paper we prefer.  These are the pictures we frame, the books we’re reading, the projects we’re undertaking – the raw material of our family.  It’s unsanitized and truthful.  We invite you into this intimate place, saturated with our family character”  (pg, 143-144).

I know so many people who do this hospitality thing well.  God has used our friends to help us in this area, too.  We definitely need each other to do this life together.

“The Philistines again waged war against Israel.  David went down with his soldiers, and they fought the Philistines, but David became exhausted (2 Sam 21:15).

“How do you relate to David’s experience of exhaustion in battle?  What old giants do you have to face?  And what’s it like when your giants keep coming back?

I am so thankful God chose to tell us David knew about exhaustion in battle!  I need to know others have experienced the weariness of fighting the same old enemy over and over.  The word for exhausted in Hebrew is uwph.  Uwph means ‘to cover, to fly, faint, flee away.’  It is the overwhelming desire to run and hide.

When was the last time you wanted to run and hide?  Few things make us want to flee more than the prospect of fighting an old battle.  The moment an old enemy reappears, we want to run into the nearest forest and never come out.  Have you ever noticed that Satan always chooses just the right time to haunt you through an old enemy?  When you haven’t had enough rest, when things have been emotional and turbulent, when you’ve been swinging from one extreme to the other, when you’re completely vulnerable – that’s when the enemy strikes.

Satan is the counterfeit god of perfect timing.  He’s watching for just the right moment to pull the rug out from under us; but even that rug is under God’s feet.  And God always has victory in mind!  He will never allow Satan to discourage you without a plan to lead you to victory!  We may not always follow Christ to victory, but He’s always leading!  ‘Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him’ (2 Cor 2:14).

One of the most important truths we can apply from David’s ongoing battles with the Philistines is that God will always lead us to victory – but He will lead us His way.

Father, thank you for taking away some of the giants in my life.  But because You’ve instructed me to give thanks in everything (1 Thess 5:18), I must thank You for choosing to leave some of my giants for me to keep dealing with.  Show me Your purposes in allowing repeat struggles to remain in my life, and teach me to be both patient and persistent in battle.”

My word this morning.

I was talking with an acquaintance after church yesterday on the playground.  She was saying how the message our pastor gave was just what her unchurched friend needed to hear: about how we don’t earn our salvation.  How it’s not about focusing on ourselves and whether we’ve been naughty or nice.

So important to remember. 

I was thinking about how our church encourages training in Christlikeness.  They value the spiritual disciplines because they are activities “in our power that we do to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort” (Willard, pg. 200).

The first example that came to my mind was the discipline of fasting, which helps us long for our true Home with God (Matt 9:15).  It breaks the hold food and this world has over us, allowing us to dine on Him.

It reminded me of starting the fast our group did for The 7 Experiment.  I did not have the best attitude because I knew I would have to reorient some things in my life.  Jen nailed it when she wrote, “Fasting is an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God’s movement in our lives.  A fast creates margin for God to move.  Temporarily changing our routine from comfort jars us off high-center…It clears space for a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit…Every word from God purposes to transform us into disciples.  There is no waste, no superfluous commands…God did not invite me into this fast to condemn me; it was to liberate me.  This isn’t a guilt-mongering, finger-pointing, comparison game.  Nor is it some angry, cynical, holier-than-thou experiment to feel superior to others.”

I feel the same way in this complex issue of simplicity of heart.  It is one of many disciplines God can use our obedience in to transform our hearts and help us seek first His kingdom and His righteousness (Matt 6:33).  We do not naturally do that on our own.  Just as we don’t meet with Jesus daily to earn His love, we don’t seek to have single eyes to perform for Him.  We do it because He commanded us to.  And we love Him and want to love Him more.  We become ever more a fruitful vine that he can prune to bear even more fruit (John 15:2).  And this is “to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

I appreciate how Foster continually points out how simplicity is the most outward of all the disciplines, and therefore most susceptible to corruption.  Therefore I am regularly doing a gut check on my motives in finishing this series.  It really does matter. 

Foster writes, “The first overarching principle is the necessity of precision without legalism.  No one knows more keenly than I the grave danger in giving specific outward application to simplicity.  How do you address such a wide variety of people with different needs and vastly different circumstances?

Some have large families; others have small families or no children.  Still others are single.  Some children have unusual needs that increase significantly the demands of time and money.  The needs of teenagers are different from the needs of children.

We are different emotionally.  One needs privacy; another thrives on crowds.  One is sensitive to beauty and symmetry; another has no interest in such matters. 

Different jobs make different demands.  The president of a university where I once taught needs a larger home than I do.  He regularly entertains groups of forty or fifty people; I panic if we top six.  Some jobs are so publicly oriented that absolute privacy in the home is a psychological necessity.

We also have the difficulty of the changing cultural and world scene.  We cannot – we must not – live in isolation from our world.  What was a prophetic expression of simplicity in one generation may become only quaint in the next.  Time changes issues, and we dare not close our eyes to that fact if we hope to be redemptive.

And most dangerous of all is our tendency to turn any expression of simplicity into a new legalism.  How quickly we calcify what should always remain alive and changing…Is it any wonder that we struggle and strain in an attempt to express exterior simplicity?  But we must not shrink back from our task…” (Foster pages 131-133)

So, the complexity of simplicity.  Seems so ironic. 

A friend and I were talking this morning about how when relationships get deeper, the issues don’t become easier or smaller.  In fact, because two people know one another better, we see the other’s flaws more easily.  But that doesn’t mean we shrink back or start over with someone else.  We travel that road together for His glory and our good in community.

All these lessons have been taught to me by His gracious hand in the excruciating realm of experience.  I hope to pass on a few things He has shown me.

Any thoughts?

“‘Why should I follow Scripture’s teaching on money and possessions when it is so much fun to have all the nice thins I want and do whatever I please with my money?  I’m a Christian, and I know I’m going to heaven anyway, so why get radical about the whole money thing?  Why not have the best of both worlds, this one and the next?’

Though few of us are bold enough to openly ask such questions, they accurately reflect a prevailing attitude in our society.  That’s why I’m convinced it’s necessary to deal with the subject of eternal rewards in this book.

The missing ingredient in the lives of many Christians today is motivation.  Given our false assumption that what we do in this life won’t have eternal consequences (apart from our decision to place our trust in Christ for salvation), it’s no wonder we’re unmotivated to follow God’s directions regarding money and possessions (and everything else).  When it comes down to it, what difference will it make?  According to the prevailing theology, everything comes out in the wash, so it won’t make any difference at all.  But according to the Bible, it will make a tremendous difference!  The doctrine of eternal rewards for our obedience is a neglected key to unlocking our motivation.

Moses ‘regarded disgrace for the name of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward’ (Hebrews 11:26).  Motivated by long-term reward, he chose short-term disgrace.

Paul ran his life’s race with his eyes on the prize, which motivated him to run hard and long.  He strove not to get a crown of laurel leaves that would rot, but ‘to get a crown that will last forever’ (1 Cor 9:24-25).  Paul was unashamedly motivated by the prospect of eternal reward, which he affirmed freely and frequently (2 Cor 4:16-18; 5:9-10; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).  He encouraged all believers to be motivated by rewards (Gal 6:9-10; 1 Tim 6:17-19; 2 Tim 2:5, 12).  Slaves, for instance, were to obey their masters in order to receive eternal reward (Eph 6:5-9; Col 3:22-25).

– Alcorn, Money, Possessions and Eternity pgs. 128-129

I feel it again.

The temptation to get too task-oriented toward this blog. 

This can be not a good thing for me.  If I’m in the middle of dealing with details or tasks (which are not my strengths) and I feel pressure to complete whatever it is, I can get too rigid.  I can lack grace for others.  I can get a “just push through and get it done” attitude.

That’s not how I want to be or how I want these lessons to come across.

Ugh.  Why is balance such a hard thing for me?

Anyway, I told my people last night and they’re on the lookout.  Keeping me accountable in my actual real life and then reading this to warn me of anything coming across as legalism or pride.

I told you that God had a word of rebuke for me during our Beth Moore weekend. 

In studying Miriam’s life, we visited Numbers 12:

“Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.  ‘Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?’ they asked.  ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’ 

And the LORD heard this.”  (verses 1-2)

Beth said when we’ve got something to say because of our pride…you better believe God will hear. 

It makes me shiver. 

God hates pride. 

Psalm 34:13 says, “keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.”

She said the Hebrew is “Lashon Hara” meaning wrong, evil, or even worthless speech.  Using our mouth in a way that does not glorify God and benefit mankind. 

One of her main points was: “The fulfillment of our life purpose can be abbreviated or derailed by our mouths.”

To the glory of His tenacious goodness in my life, He and I have made some strides in the area of my mouth.  But it’s always a difficult thing (James 3).

And even though this blog isn’t a mouth, it is still words. 

1 Corinthians 1:4-5 (NET): “I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus.  For you were made rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge…”

We can have blessed mouths!

God, give me holy fear of You.  Help us to have a proper view of You that leaves no room for pride.  I want to love what You love and hate what You hate.