Week 8: A Few Good Men and Women

We have been journeying with Moses in the wilderness, Joshua has just guided the nation of Israel into the Promise Land, and all in all it would seem like The Story is finally getting back on track after originally derailing in the garden of Eden.  Yet that is not the case, it seems that the Israelites just cannot win at life.  Just as with the golden calf they no sooner get on the God given pathway than they think they see a better way and take wrong path.  The Lower Story is that the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, the Canaanites lives look so much better and the Israelites stop following God and fall into sin, and yet isn’t that a statement about our lives as well.  We want to do what is right in God’s eyes, but we struggle to do so.

Chapter 8 in The Story is all about the time of judges in the Bible.  A time when Israel would sin, fall into bondage, repent and cry out to God, and God would hear their cries and deliver them through the guidance of eleven judges.   Judges that ironically came not to put them into jail but to instead release them from jail.  This was their story and yet it is still our story.  The Lower story is one of human rebellion  against God’s provision in our lives, and the Upper story is God’s willingness to always save us when we are willing to cry out and confess our sins.

The truth is we need God all the time not just when we are  in desperate need and God wants to walk with us each and every day.  The challenge is setting aside all of our wants, all of the cultural expectations that we face each day and trying to live each day God’s way.

In what ways are you living your life according to your plans and your desires?

Drawing closer to God and God’s plan for your life means spending time with God.

What is the possibility that in the coming week you would began and ended each day with God, both in prayer, simply listening for God, and reading God’s Word?