the priest with the prodigal, that didn't return

1 Samuel 4:12-22

Immediately, a Benjaminite raced from the front lines back to Shiloh. Shirt torn and face smeared with dirt, he entered the town. Eli was sitting on his stool beside the road keeping vigil, for he was extremely worried about the Chest of God. When the man ran straight into town to tell the bad news, everyone wept. They were appalled. Eli heard the loud wailing and asked, “Why this uproar?” The messenger hurried over and reported. Eli was ninety-eight years old then, and blind. The man said to Eli, “I’ve just come from the front, barely escaping with my life.” “And so, my son,” said Eli, “what happened?”

The messenger answered, “Israel scattered before the Philistines. The defeat was catastrophic, with enormous losses. Your sons Hophni and Phinehas died, and the Chest of God was taken.”  At the words, “Chest of God,” Eli fell backward off his stool where he sat next to the gate. Eli was an old man, and very fat. When he fell, he broke his neck and died. He had led Israel forty years.

 His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and ready to deliver. When she heard that the Chest of God had been taken and that both her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went to her knees to give birth, going into hard labor. As she was about to die, her midwife said, “Don’t be afraid. You’ve given birth to a son!” But she gave no sign that she had heard.  The Chest of God gone, father-in-law dead, husband dead, she named the boy Ichabod (Glory’s-Gone), saying, “Glory is exiled from Israel since the Chest of God was taken.”

This is probably one of the hardest things I have been asked to write about, and probably the hardest few months I have been asked to walk through.  On days where it is just really hard, difficult, overwhelming, and often very lonely, I am so grateful that Jesus goes ahead of me to endure through these things.  Things I don't have to do, but things I GET to do.  Because really, I don't HAVE to.  I could always walk away from this, and go back to living "my" way.  I could.....but I'm not.

Back in May one of my boys was arrested.  If you have ever had a son get arrested, then I now know how you feel.  It has completely wrecked me.  It has broken my heart.  It has grieved me.  It has shaken me deep down in my heart.  It has taken me to a whole new place with Jesus I have not been before.  It has, well...all of the above and more.  

While I have known this boy for a few years, it wasn't until this past fall that I really got to "know" him, and earlier this year one day in the car the Lord just did something big between us.  Opened up a door for me to just jump right into living life with him.  Since then, he has been my son, whom I have grown to love so quickly and so much, so you can imagine how hard the last 40 days have been since he was arrested.

Regardless of how he got there, when you see your son walk into a courtroom in an orange jump suit, eyes swollen from being pepper sprayed by the police, hands and feet chained where he can barely walk or move......It wrecks you.  Then you have to hear the judge make their decision, then see him walk out of the room, not knowing when you will get to see him or talk to him again.....It wrecks you.  Then spending lots of money weekly for him to call you collect, because he just needs to know you will answer and tell him you love him.....It wrecks you.  

My first visit to see him out in the Raymond jail......yep, it wrecked me.  On my way there I was praying and the Lord told me to share Luke 15 with him.  So I did, and then we just sat there looking at each other through the screen and cried. 

 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.   “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.

His second court date was Monday morning.  I have been praying my guts out for grace from the judge, mercy from the judge, and looking at every possible option to try to get him home.  Nothing is working out right now, and the judge showed no grace, and no mercy on my boy.  That same being wrecked seeing him in the jump suit chained up, was even harder this time.  He was sitting so close to me in the courtroom I just wanted to grab him, hug him, throw him over my shoulders, carry him out, and bring him home and love him.

Early Monday morning I was up praying and the Lord spoke so loud, so clear, so quickly, he said, "I am changing the course for Mike."   Not what I was expecting to hear from Jesus.  I really was waiting on the Lord to say, "Cheer up kiddo, he's coming home today!"  The wreckage just continues to float ashore.  I don't know what the Lord is doing, but He is doing something so big and so great in my boy's life, that I just have to sit and wait. 

Now, back to 1 Samuel.

Eli's sons were a big mess (if you read the first part of this chapter and my previous blog), and this is where Eli finds out they had been killed.  This is the short version of what happened.

Eli was sitting, waiting, watching, for his son's to return.  But he wasn't really waiting for them, he was waiting for the ark.  When he was told that his sons had been killed, and the ark had been captured - he fell right off his stool and broke his neck and died, not because his sons died, but because he didn't get to have the ark back.  No mention of him even grieving for his sons.  Wow. 

Now read the other part of Luke 15

Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’  “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.  “That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.

“When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’

“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.

“All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’

  “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’  “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’”

So, you have two fathers, with two sets of sons.  The sons are lost, so far away, having done some very unholy, desperate, unthinkable things.  One father is waiting on his sons to bring back something to him, one father is waiting on the Lord to bring his son back. 

As I sit here and wait on my son to come back, I don't want to wait on God to come back to me - HE IS WITH ME through this.  He isn't in a box in a far off country, He is right here with me.  And I don't want to find out my son died and fall off my front porch swing and break my neck.

I want to wait on my son to come home, because the Lord has set him on a new course to get him home, and have the biggest party I have ever thrown in my life and scream so loud from the North End (aka, Midtown) MY BOY IS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know when he comes home, He will be changed.  God said it, so it is so.  

 

 

אָרוֹן הַבְּרִית‎‎

1 Samuel 4:1-11

Whatever Samuel said was broadcast all through Israel. Israel went to war against the Philistines. Israel set up camp at Ebenezer, the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines marched out to meet Israel, the fighting spread, and Israel was badly beaten—about four thousand soldiers left dead on the field. When the troops returned to camp, Israel’s elders said, “Why has God given us such a beating today by the Philistines? Let’s go to Shiloh and get the Chest of God’s Covenant. It will accompany us and save us from the grip of our enemies.”

So the army sent orders to Shiloh. They brought the Chest of the Covenant of God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Cherubim-Enthroned-God. Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, accompanied the Chest of the Covenant of God.

When the Chest of the Covenant of God was brought into camp, everyone gave a huge cheer. The shouts were like thunderclaps shaking the very ground. The Philistines heard the shouting and wondered what on earth was going on: “What’s all this shouting among the Hebrews?”

Then they learned that the Chest of God had entered the Hebrew camp. The Philistines panicked: “Their gods have come to their camp! Nothing like this has ever happened before. We’re done for! Who can save us from the clutches of these supergods? These are the same gods who hit the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues out in the wilderness. On your feet, Philistines! Courage! We’re about to become slaves to the Hebrews, just as they have been slaves to us. Show what you’re made of! Fight for your lives!”

And did they ever fight! It turned into a rout. They thrashed Israel so mercilessly that the Israelite soldiers ran for their lives, leaving behind an incredible thirty thousand dead. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Chest of God was taken and the two sons of Eli—Hophni and Phinehas—were killed.

The Plilistines were the Israelites greatest enemy.  And one day that enemy took over 4,000 of their men.  Naturally they asked, "Why did this happen to us?  We are God's people."  So after this great tragedy, this major loss, they went to God, but not in the right way.  They recognized the holiness of the ark (The Ark of the Covenant held the 10 commandments, and was supposed to be kept in the Most Holy Place in the temple), but they thought the ark itself would rescue and save them, not the holiness that was inside it.  So they removed the ark from it's Holy place, and used it as a good luck charm, expecting it to protect them from the enemy. 

They thought that if they took the ark into battle with them, it would bring them victory after such a great defeat.  But what happened was just the opposite.  The enemy defeated them even greater, by slaughtering over 30,000 men this time, including the two sons of Eli (1 Samuel 2:34 "And to prove that what I said will come true, I will cause your two sons to die on the same day.")

A symbol of God does not save us, God does.  

Church does not save us, the One we worship there does.

The cross doesn't free us, the One that died on the cross does.

Don't let one defeat lead you into using a symbol of God as an idol.  It will not work.  Go straight to the source.  Jesus is the ONLY one that can get us there. 

I have a new young man that has joined my herd.  He is a 19 year old that looks just like Russell Westbrook (if you  know who that is).  He's pretty awesome too.  We were in the car on Friday going out to the Raymond jail to see my boy, and his bro, and I asked him about the tattoo that covers his entire right arm.  I had noticed it when he first started coming around and wanted to find out what it was about.  Funny....when I asked him to tell me about it, he said, "I don't even really know, I just got it when I was mad."  At the very top of his arm is a scripture that I saw, but didn't know which one it was, so I asked him to tell me about that too.  Again, he said, "I don't even know what it is.  The guy that did the tat said he saw something in me that made him think of it, so he just put it on there."  This is what is tattooed on his arm:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

 that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 3:16

So then I got to tell him what that means.  What is means for him personally.  What Jesus did for him.  What Jesus is doing for him every day.  The Bible verse inked on his arm does not make him a Christian, but when he begins to understand what that verse means for him, and he believes it IS for him, that is what will set him free.  

may it be a sweet sweet sound in my ear

1 Samuel 3
 
"The boy Samuel was serving God under Eli’s direction. This was at a time when the revelation of God was rarely heard or seen. One night Eli was sound asleep (his eyesight was very bad—he could hardly see). It was well before dawn; the sanctuary lamp was still burning. Samuel was still in bed in the Temple of God, where the Chest of God rested.  Then God called out, “Samuel, Samuel!”  Samuel answered, “Yes? I’m here.” Then he ran to Eli saying, “I heard you call. Here I am.”  Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” And so he did.

God called again, “Samuel, Samuel!”  Samuel got up and went to Eli, “I heard you call. Here I am.”  Again Eli said, “Son, I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” (This all happened before Samuel knew God for himself. It was before the revelation of God had been given to him personally.)

God called again, “Samuel!”—the third time! Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, “Yes? I heard you call me. Here I am.”  That’s when it dawned on Eli that God was calling the boy. So Eli directed Samuel, “Go back and lie down. If the voice calls again, say, ‘Speak, God. I’m your servant, ready to listen.’” Samuel returned to his bed^.

Then God came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Samuel answered, “Speak. I’m your servant, ready to listen.”

 God said to Samuel, “Listen carefully. I’m getting ready to do something in Israel that is going to shake everyone up and get their attention. The time has come for me to bring down on Eli’s family everything I warned him of, every last word of it. I’m letting him know that the time’s up. I’m bringing judgment on his family for good. He knew what was going on, that his sons were desecrating God’s name and God’s place, and he did nothing to stop them. This is my sentence on the family of Eli: The evil of Eli’s family can never be wiped out by sacrifice or offering.”  Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then rose early and went about his duties, opening the doors of the sanctuary, but he dreaded having to tell the vision to Eli.  But then Eli summoned Samuel: “Samuel, my son!  Samuel came running: “Yes? What can I do for you?”  “What did he say? Tell it to me, all of it. Don’t suppress or soften one word, as God is your judge! I want it all, word for word as he said it to you.”

So Samuel told him, word for word. He held back nothing.
Eli said, “He is God. Let him do whatever he thinks best.”

Samuel grew up. God was with him, and Samuel’s prophetic record was flawless. Everyone in Israel, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, recognized that Samuel was the real thing—a true prophet of God. God continued to show up at Shiloh, revealed through his word to Samuel at Shiloh.

I remember the first time I heard the voice of God, audibly heard Him speak to me.  It was in October of 2010 in the cold, barely dripping water, of a make shift shower in Dira Dawa, Ethiopia.  

I love Africa, everything about it.  I wanted to live there (I still do some days), and when I went on this trip I really thought God was going to send crashes of thunder and waves of lightening and sound a trumpet to tell me "I want to you move here."  But guess what, He didn't.  Instead this is what I heard from God, "If you don't know how to love people where you are, why would I send you here to do it."  Hard to hear.

This is what God said to me - for the first time in my life hearing His voice, so clear and loud.  I can still hear that voice today.  And there I was, standing in this wobbly shower, trying to figure out if someone was outside the door talking to me, or if I was making it all up in my head.  But it was real, it was a real voice, it was the real voice of God. 

I didn't really know what to do next, so I just picked up my Bible and opened it and started reading, and where it took me, is how I ended up where I am today.

   If you get rid of unfair practices,
    quit blaming victims,
    quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
    and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
    your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
    I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
    firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
    a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
    rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
    restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
    make the community livable again.

Isaiah 58:9-12

I had never read the book of Isaiah in my life.  I just knew it was a long book in the Old Testament.  But I started reading from chapter 1 and finished the entire thing in 2 days. When I got to chapter 58, it rocked me to the core.  It changed the destiny of my life.  It came alive to me.  It confirmed what I had been searching for in Ethiopia, that took me to the streets of downtown Jackson.  

I had been "going to church" for many years, served IN the church, was at so many events AT the church, attended every Sunday OF church; yet, I was still so empty, missing something I couldn't quite figure out what it was.    

Then, that voice spoke to me.  That sound I will never forget in my ears, in my head, in my heart.  The voice of truth.  And when I heard it, I never wanted it to stop talking to me.  Jesus has the sweetest, most tender, loving, gentle, kind, precious voice you will ever hear or know.  Listen for it, because when you hear it, you don't want it to ever leave you.

I came back to Jackson, gave everything I had away (including myself), gave up "church" to BE the church, and today....well, you know what life is like today.  

Samuel was training to be a priest, he was in the temple everyday, learning from men serving God, but when God spoke to him - he didn't know it was God.  (chew on that)  It took him 3 times hearing the voice of the Lord, and someone else knowing it was the Lord, for him to realize what was happening  (chew on that, too)  But when he recognized the voice, it changed everything. 

But get this - what God said to him - it was hard to hear.  It wasn't a romantic, fun-filled vacation, joyful uproar, jolly of a good time, news.....it was hard news.  (chew on that, again)  And then he had to share it with Eli, even harder.  

When I heard the Lord speak to me, I wanted it to be something exciting, like "move to Africa and you will have the time of your life!", but instead, it was "dear beloved, give everything you have away, and move 15 minutes down the street to the hood."  (shoulders sag and sigh a little) 

 

But what did Samuel do?  Well, he crawled in bed and stayed up all night thinking about how he was going to tell Eli what God said.  (that's ok, sometimes, as long as you still do what God says)  I did that for a few weeks myself.  But then I got up, did what God said to do, and never looked back.

Six years later........

I was in the yard yesterday, picking up freeze pop papers, hot chip bags, water bottle caps, and said to the Lord, "UGH, why do I have to do this everyday!"  and Jesus said to me, (get ready for this) "What did you think you would be doing.  Getting manicures and massages all the time?"  HAHA.  Jesus, you so funny sometimes. 

Listen for his voice.  Know his voice.  Obey his voice.  Even when it is hard to hear.

It can, and will, change everything about your life, and the life he has planned for you.

This was one of the faces I loved most about that time in Ethiopia.  That trip was so beautiful, and I love that Jesus took me all the way there, to tell me to come all the way here.

 

tears of pain

For the last few weeks, I have been crying.  A lot.  More than I think I ever have in my life.  Two weeks ago I sat down, wiped my snot off my face, opened my Bible, and turned to the next section in 1 Samuel to read, and the title of that section was "A hard life with many tears"  Yep.   It was exactly what I had been feeling, and have been feeling. 

"By this time Eli was very old. He kept getting reports on how his sons were ripping off the people and sleeping with the women who helped out at the sanctuary. Eli took them to task: “What’s going on here? Why are you doing these things? I hear story after story of your corrupt and evil carrying on. Oh, my sons, this is not right! These are terrible reports I’m getting, stories spreading right and left among God’s people! If you sin against another person, there’s help—God’s help. But if you sin against God, who is around to help?”  But they were far gone in disobedience and refused to listen to a thing their father said. So God, who was fed up with them, decreed their death. But the boy Samuel was very much alive, growing up, blessed by God and popular with the people."  1 Samuel 2:22-26

It is really hard for me to grasps that the sons of Eli were that far gone in sin that God just decreed their death.  They must have been worse that anything we have ever seen in our time on earth.  Think of the most evil person you have ever encountered, or seen on the news, and they had to have been a million times worse than that.  Sinning out of ignorance v/s sinning out of deliberate intention.  God don't play.

"A holy man came to Eli and said: “This is God’s message: I revealed myself openly to your ancestors when they were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose your family to be my priests: to preside at the Altar, to burn incense, to wear the priestly robes in my presence. I put your ancestral family in charge of all the sacrificial offerings of Israel. So why do you now treat as mere loot these very sacrificial offerings that I commanded for my worship? Why do you treat your sons better than me, turning them loose to get fat on these offerings, and ignoring me? Therefore—this is God’s word, the God of Israel speaking—I once said that you and your ancestral family would be my priests indefinitely, but now—God’s word, remember!—there is no way this can continue."  27-30

I honor those who honor me;
those who scorn me I demean.

 Eli obviously had a hard time controlling his sons.  When they messed up, he must not have disciplined them, even knowing how wild they were.  He wasn't just overlooking the sins of his sons, but he was also a high priest that ignored the sins of the priest under his leadership. 

   

Are there places in your life, family, work, friends that are deliberate sins you allow to continue, even when you know they are wrong?  We can be just as guilty and face consequences as those that are actually "sinning." 

 

“Be well warned: It won’t be long before I wipe out both your family and your future family. No one in your family will make it to old age! You’ll see good things that I’m doing in Israel, but you’ll see it and weep, for no one in your family will live to enjoy it. I will leave one person to serve at my Altar, but it will be a hard life, with many tears. Everyone else in your family will die before their time. What happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be the proof: Both will die the same day. Then I’ll establish for myself a true priest. He’ll do what I want him to do, be what I want him to be. I’ll make his position secure and he’ll do his work freely in the service of my anointed one. Survivors from your family will come to him begging for handouts, saying, ‘Please, give me some priest work, just enough to put some food on the table.’”  31-36

The recognition and respect Eli earned in public did not extend to the handling of his own family in private.  He may have been an excellent priest, but he was not a good parent.  Even when God pointed out his problems and gave him ways to correct them, he choose to ignore them and let his sons do whatever they wanted, eventually causing their death.  

Being a parent is hard.  This is my first, and may be my only chance in this life to get to do this, and it is way harder than I ever expected.  Sometimes I think, "what am I doing, these aren't even my kids!!!!!"  yes, I say that to myself many times.  Then I think.......they are God's children, not mine, and I am His child, and He is our Father, so we are all in this together.  Get back on track.  

All these tears I have been shedding the last few weeks - I didn't even know I could cry like this.  Where have they been storing up for all these years?  Apparently stored up until I became a "mama."

boys and girls dressed up for their 8th grade ball - cry.

boys dressed up and walking across the stage for 8th grade graduation - cry

boys and girl graduating from high school - cry

driving boy to Florida to leave here and start fresh there - cry 

boy getting arrested - cry.  seeing boy in orange jump suit and chained up in court - cry.  answering collect calls from boy every day - cry.  seeing boy's face through the monitor at the jail - cry, cry, cry, cry, cry (boys even said when I walked out "I told ya'll she was gonna come out crying)

boy messaging me from prison every day - cry

boy not messaging me one day and I get worried about him - cry

boys eating all the food I just bought - cry

boys cleaning the house without me asking - cry

boys fighting in the house - cry

boys laughing in the house playing uno - cry

 

you get the picture - just two weeks worth of crying right here.  

 

it's been hard, people.  real, real hard.  but it's been a big, hot, beautiful mess of hard.  If I sat back and didn't say anything, what good would I be here?  Even when it's hard, even when they think I am crazy, even when they get tired of listening to me, even when I cry, it is still good>hard.

In this thing called "parenting", whether it is your own child or you are just part of the village it takes to raise one, don't be like Eli and ignore the sin - speak truth, even if your voice shakes - over and over and and over and over and over.  Because one day they will get it....just like Samuel did. 

 

I told boy Monday when I was looking at him through that monitor at the jail......

 

YOU ARE WORTH IT 

 

I am praying Luke 15 over my boy every day.  

"Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶ and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

Meet Chris.  He's so funny.  He's very quiet, very soft spoken, but always has something really intelligent and funny to say.  I have so enjoyed getting to know him and spend time with him over the last few months.  He has helped me with so much at my house, from cleaning to painting to moving to just coming to hang out.  He's really a joy to be around. 

We were in the car one day and I noticed the tattoo he has on his arm.  It took a minute for me to read what it says "Tears of Pain".  When I asked him what it meant, he said it was just about all the tears of pain he has had in his life.  He caught his first charge when he was 14, spent time in prison, and dropped out of school.  But he is now 18, going to school to get his GED, a hard worker, stays out of trouble, really wants a job, and he's funny.
 
The tattoo on his arm is a little faded.  He told me that right after he got it, he was walking in the rain, and it washed some of the ink off. 

Just like Jesus does - washes all our tears of pain away.