Growin' Up Gregory

How's your faith?  I'm willing to bet that if most of us are truly honest, our faith is often times "iffy" at best.  We make statements like: -  God, if you'll give me a child, I promise I'll dedicate him/her to you. -  God, if you give me good job or a raise, I'll be more generous with my giving. -  God, if you give me a prominent position, I'll talk about you more with people. And while we've all probably made "deals" like these with God before, they are not how our faith should operate.  God listens, but He doesn't negotiate.  I believe that He hears our prayers and that He is compassionate to our concerns and our hearts, but I also know that ultimately His will will be done. Rather than having if, or iffy, faith, perhaps we should focus on having EVEN IF faith: -  Will you trust God EVEN IF your child becomes deathly ill, develops some severe condition, or worse dies?  Will you still trust His purposes for that child in y...

This the second part of Dealing with Disaster with our model of how to respond to crisis that is shown in 2 Samuel 21:1-14.  (vs 4-6 here) We saw in Part 1 that when David faced a crisis, he first inquired of God, and then he inquired of the people who had been wronged.  He wanted to know how he could possibly make up for the prior wrongdoings to them and atone for the actions of his predecessor. In a request that would be considered shocking by most standards today, the Gibeonites did not ask for "silver and gold."  Money and financial reimbursements would not take away the pain their people had experienced.  They requested that seven of Saul's male descendants be turned over to them and hanged in the presence of the Lord.  While it is pretty easy to assume that Saul's attempted genocide of the people resulted in much more than seven deaths, we can assume that there was some symbolism here.  And this is certainly not a method of reconciliation that is ...

When we hear stories of natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and the raging forest fires taking place now in California, our minds tend to wonder what is these people may have done to deserve this type of judgment.  But we must remember that natural disasters and other hardships are merely a part of living in a fallen world.  One of the most recorded natural calamities in Bible is famine.  Lifeway offers this on famine, "While not always the result of divine judgment on sin, at times it did indicate the Lord's displeasure with something in the experience of His people, Israel."  And as they continued, "The purpose (of famine) was always to lead them back to Him and to seek His favor." So how do we deal with crises?  What do we do when disaster strikes?  We see a good model set for us in 2 Samuel 21:1-14.  (vs 1-3 here) After experiencing three consecutive years of famine, King David did what any wise man should do - he "inquired...