Grains of Sand

Google Images It’s a curious statement—until you check out the details behind it. In 2 Kings 15 we have a brief summary of the reign of Azariah (or Uzziah), king of Judah. He became king at the age of sixteen and remained king for fifty-two years. Verse 3 tells us: “ He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done .” All good, right? But here comes the curious statement. “ The Lord afflicted the king with leprosy until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house. Jotham the kings’s son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land ” (15:5). Azariah, or Uzziah, was one of the good guys. So what happened that the Lord brought this affliction down upon him? The book of Kings doesn’t give us the details but a parallel account in 2 Chronicles 26 does. Uzziah, as he is called in Chronicles, was a great king. It was recorded that: “ …his fame spread as far as the border of Egypt, because he had become very powerful…he was greatly hel...

Google Images Jesus told the parable of a servant who owed his master a huge amount of money (Matthew 18:23-35). He was about to lose everything, including his freedom, when his master graciously forgave the debt. " But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded " (Matthew 18:28). Did he just not make the connection in his mind, or was he simply too humiliated because he’d had to beg for his freedom, that the servant went out and threw another man into jail because he couldn’t pay a much smaller debt? Did it make him feel bigger to abuse someone after his master had made him feel smaller by being generous? We all know people (and perhaps ARE those people) who act as though everyone else is stupid and they’re smart, or everyone else is wrong and they’re right. We all know people who seem to delight in pointing out the “weaknesses”...

Reading: Jeremiah 1-3, Hebrews 9 I was a surprise to my parents, born late in their lives. God wasn’t a bit surprised. When I was in my early teens, a “friend” of the family told me that I should never have been born. God had a different opinion on that subject. So when I read God’s words to Jeremiah, I nod my head knowingly. “ The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you a prophet to the nations’ ” —Jeremiah 1:5, NIV. I like that thought. It’s not unique to Jeremiah. David echoes it in Psalm 139: “…you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were writte...

“ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall ” —Proverbs 16:18, NIV. I remember a now very famous theologian who misquoted this verse. Mind you, he wasn’t famous then, but he was considered the brightest star in our seminary. I really enjoyed correcting him. Years ago I came within inches of throwing away my career because I thought I was better than my colleagues. I convinced myself that because they were behaving badly God couldn’t possibly want me to be around them. If I worked a little harder at this I am sure I could come up with several more personal examples of just how easy it is for pride to slip in, take root, and grow into something not so beautiful, like a competitive spirit or an attitude of spiritual superiority. “Self-esteem” is a word that can provide rich soil for the root of pride because it highlights “self.” But even in Christian circles, self-esteem has become the “north” to a generation of people who have been crushed by the circumsta...