1 Chronicles 6

names worth repeating...

, mary

1 Chronicles 5

~ verse 22: and many others fell slain, because the battle was God's. And they occupied the land until the exile.

the only thing i can think about today is the tech shooting. i have so many questions even though i probably don't know anyone who was killed, i don't go to tech, i don't even live anywhere remotely near virginia. who was the shooter? what drove him to do it? was he demon-possessed? who was killed? how come nobody stopped the gunman as he was walking to the class building? the list goes on. but probably the biggest question is one that many people have asked before...

"why does God allow these things to happen?" and quite honestly, there's no real good answer for that question. we just don't know. sometimes, when i'm an outside observer, i try to speculate. like 9/11, for example. i tried different avenues: "maybe all those people had to die so that that many more people could believe?" "maybe all the people in the building were evil and God thought we'd be better off without them?" "maybe it was necessary for the US to be more united?" "maybe it was a warning of things to come?" but none of those answers ever really felt like "the" answer and never really satisfied. it really could be anything. and same with the tech shootings.

so what does it mean when the battle is God's? doesn't everything belong to God, anyway? God is not evil, but what is His purpose? and does He even need to explain Himself to us?

, mary

1 Chronicles 4

~ verse 10: Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

i know there's a whole book written on this simple prayer, but i've never read it. wasn't it a huge fad for awhile? things like that make me suspicious. i mean, i don't know what the book said, but if any book becomes more of a fad than the Bible, itself, i find it suspect. how could one possibly know the heart of God from one verse out of the Bible? and even if you were to know the heart of God from one verse of the Bible, i certainly don't think it would be this verse.

i think this prayer is a little one-sided. it reminds me of my students. i teach in our high school ministry and all the kids are really spoiled. we had 30-hour famine last weekend and to break the fast, we told the kids they had to eat a cup full of Unimix (this World Vision cornmeal-type recipe that is fed to starving children in order that they may live) before they could have the food the parents had prepared. one of the kids said, "if i have to eat this stuff to get the good food, then i'm not gonna eat at all." what a bad attitude! what happened to men who just suck it up? now we have a bunch of complainers. that's the kind of thing that makes me dislike this prayer.

we need a balance. we can't teach too much "God's love" to our kids. there has to be "fear of God," as well. the kids in our ministry are spoiled and don't think they need God. they don't know how to just be obedient. whereas, i feel like the older generations are more legalistic. maybe they had a little bit too much of the "fear of God" and not enough of "God's love."

, mary

1 Chronicles 3

~ verse 9: All these were the sons of David, besides his sons by his concubines. And Tamar was their sister. The Kings of Judah

in this chapter, alone, twenty children of David are listed. and in this verse, it notes that there were more children born to him by his concubines. i think it is interesting that, today, men can't even handle like 4 or 5 kids. so how in the world was it possible for David to keep up with 20+? i bet he forgot their names from time to time.

i also think it's interesting that David had so many wives. but God didn't seem to have any problems with that. i mean, it seems like the punishments that David incurred were more due to him killing a man and stealing his wife than they were for him having too many wives. furthermore, i wonder how society changed so much that, this day in age, it is considered wrong or immoral to have more than one wife (in most countries/places). i mean, i guess in some sense, i am proud of humanity for coming to that decision. if it was okay back in David and Solomon's time, what course of events ensued that made it wrong today?

, mary

1 Chronicles 2

~ verses 13-15: Jesse was the father of Eliab his firstborn; the second son was Abinadab, the third Shimea, the fourth Nethanel, the fifth Raddai, the sixth Ozem and the seventh David.

God always talks about how he uses the weak and foolish and the "least." i know there are a lot of youngest sons (e.g., Joseph, Jacob, Abel, etc.) who were honored above their older brothers, but i didn't know David was one of them.

i think a lot of things that God does don't seem "fair." a lot of my friends are getting married soon. recently, it's been bothering me a lot. not because i'm jealous that i'm not getting married, but because i feel like i'm losing my friends. then one of my friends asked me if i was at all jealous that i'm not getting married. i confessed that, yes, there probably is a small part of me that's jealous about that. but when i really sit down and think about it, the earliest i would want to be married is in like a year and a half or two years. so not yet.

but then i pondered a little more. i think it's a bit unfair. i mean out of all of my friends, i was the one who wanted it the most. all of my friends who are getting married now are like the ones who never really cared. i'm the one who always said i wanted to get married at 24. and then i started reflecting on my life and realized that everything i wanted really really badly never worked out for me. not that i'm not happy and thankful of how my life turned out, but it's just interesting because you would think that the things that i wanted most would at least come true.

, mary