As a child, I grew up as a concrete thinker.  Honestly, most of us were. That’s just a fact about kids.  They think concretely and are unable to process the subtle imagery adults use.

I remember I had a deep fear of my aunt who told me that I was so cute she could just eat me up. I didn’t understand and ran away in fear. All I knew was that my aunt was a cannibal and I was spending a weekend at her house. Trauma.

It just seemed like my aunt said things that were strangely macabre. Who is this woman? Is she really my aunt? How many children has she eaten?

“Come here, Sugar. Let me wipe your face off.”

“Wipe my face off? No!”

She thought I was being stubborn but who in their right mind wipes someone’s face completely OFF? There must be a law, an ordinance that would prohibit such a disfigurement. How would one see? How would one breathe?

I was often called a “toe-head.” I still don’t know what that referred to but I spent more than one night performing a thorough inspection of my skull to make sure an 11th toe wasn’t about to burst forth from my temple. That’s not the way I wanted to join the circus.

Later in life, we learn the difference between hyperbole and reality.

It took me a while to understand the concept of Jesus living inside me, dying to self, following Jesus, and giving Him everything. These aren’t just overblown, colloquialisms. These gigantic expressions are a mandate, especially for dads. There is nothing more important than letting these phrases become a reality, as we love our church, our family, and our friends.

I don’t want people to look back at my life and say, “Sure, He talked about dying to himself but that was just an exaggeration. He didn’t mean that literally.”

I don’t want my kids to say, “Oh, when He talked about following Jesus, He didn’t really mean actually following Jesus. He just meant that He admired the Man and thought He’d trying to live a little like Him.”

I want them to say, “He really believed all that stuff about Jesus and He was continually on a hunt for Him. He was obsessed with the fact that Jesus really rose from the dead. He really feared that his friends might go to hell (a real place) not just another PG word.” I’d love it to be said of me after I die, “That crazy old dude actually prayed like Jesus could actually hear him.”

That’s what would make me smile. And it’s something that no one will wipe off my face.

Jehu storms his way through 2 Kings 9 and 10 with fury and reckless abandon. He stands in history as one who did God’s will but with dangerous and ungodly means. The story illustrates God’s disdain of evil and idol worship when it ravages God’s people. In verse 20 we see that Jehu had a reputation of being a fast and furious driver.  In our day, he’d be in the tricked-out sports car flooring the gas and refusing to signal his lane changes. His story lands him the reputation of a sports hero who paid fines which were almost half his salary. Although he fought valiantly for God, you kind of get the feeling as you read the story that Jehu wanted the story to be more about Jehu.  It’s no wonder why Elisha gave his prophet apprentice the instructions for anointing Jehu to anoint him, tell him that he’s king and then run for dear life. This was one bad prince!

Choose a Side

Read 2 Kings 9:16-22

Joram, one of the sons of Jezebel found himself in a difficult position. The rebellion and witchcraft of his mother Jezebel caused him to be the focus of target practice. He enjoyed the life of power and passion in the company of demons, perhaps never considering that there would be a price to pay for his world view. No wonder he asked fearfully, “Do you come in peace?”  He probably already knew that he was a dead man.  This was, remember, Jehu. The fast and furious driver for God. God’s question to us at the end of our lives won’t be “were you passionate?”  People are passionate for lots of things from football to funnel cake. Just because you live passionately doesn’t mean you have a free pass. Hitler was passionate. Charles Manson was passionate. Joseph Stalin was passionate. Kurt Cobain was passionate. The real question is- what is the source and purpose of your passion?  As I think about this issue, I can’t help thinking of James Ray, the self-help spiritualist who motivated people to enter the sweat lodge in Arizona where three people died last year. He’s a passionate leader but a leader with no source of real godly guidance and is now paying the price for his pied piper philosophy. Our passion must be funneled into the right direction. And just so you know, there’s only one right direction.

A Friend in the Desert
Read 2 Kings 10:15-17

Jehu encountered Jehonadab whom was a leader of a nomad tribe, living in the desert and keeping the Hebrew traditions of his ancestors. Jehu recognized his faith and asked “Are you with me?”  Jehonadab said yes and they joined forced. Jehu invited him to see His zeal for the Lord. Jehonadab is an archetype for accountability.  When we are in a spiritual battle, we should never go it alone.  We need people around us to evaluate our actions and to partner with us. Solomon recognized this when he said in Ecclesiastes that two are better than one. There is no room for spiritual loners.

• What person are you accountable to as you fight the good fight?
• Are you connecting authentically with someone?

If you aren’t, you’re missing the real excitement of life. God meant life to be a shared experience, especially when there is a battle to be fought.

Situational Ethics
Read 2 Kings 10:18-19

It’s the story of how Jehu punked the idol worshipers. Jehu gathered all the usual suspects of idol worship and led them to believe that he, too, was a Baal worshiper. He called them all to a worship celebration of Baal, and took on the disguise of a true Baal believer. Then at the opening chorus of the first act of worship he called on his army to mow them all down.  This is what some professors would call situational ethics- the ends justifying the means.  Is it OK to lie or deceive if it accomplishes a purpose? Is it OK to sleep with someone you love but aren’t married to? Is it OK to have an abortion if it will save your reputation? These efforts to grey the lines or to fudge the story always come back to bite you. (Ouch!) Christian character is telling the story straight and doing the right thing, even if it causes pain.  How can God get the glory when we have a strong sense of ethics?

The Results of Strong Passion and Weak Character
Read 2 Kings 10:30-32

Verse 31 of this chapter tells the sad end to this incredible anti-hero. The bad boy Jehu who put the pedal to the metal, destroyed the Baal worshipers, and did away with old wicked Jezebel ended up not being true to the God that anointed him as ruler. How utterly common this is! Success often makes fools of believers. We are so easily tempted to believe that we can have a divided heart and still be a success as a believer.  What can you do today to prevent such heartbreaks in the future?

Think about this

• In what areas of your life do you need to slow down?
• Are you listening closely to God’s instructions?
• Are you ready to confront the culture with the truth?
• What will your legacy be as a Christ follower?

This Fire of Love
unquenched by Eden’s wreck
and flowing seemingly in perpetuity
toward all that soon will be
in all its violent beauty
He shall hold all hell’s poison and heaven’s glory.
Small beginning, love’s grandest story
from the heartbeat in a virgin’s womb
til one Sunday rising from the tomb
One
for all…
Once
for all…
This is the salvation from garrulous platitudes and languorous days
Advent… in slightest breath, in manger lay.
Ten-thousand kingdoms would bow through ages.
The cause of grace and recompense
From distant past to future tense:
Jesus

My grandfather lived

in a rustic house near a sloping cool branch with slipery stones

and verdant woods

I walked slowly toward the treeline where

mystery lay

and there in the shade of autumn’s bough

i see darkness rising

close of day.

but death,

a far

closer

angel visited then and will and again because

it is unchanged, like the virgin nest of the wip-poor-will

though unwelcomed

tender unforgiving visitor on the side of the hill

where i last heard his voice.

away

Everybody ends up
in the belly of the beast.
There are few exceptions
from the greatest to the least.
You stumble into quicksand.
You’re weary of the world.
Lies wreck your reputation.
Insults, viciously, are hurled.
Addiction lies in dormancy
then rears it’s ugly head.
Depression sinks in slowly,
Like the whispers of the dead.
A chronic, stubborn stronghold
infiltrates your weakened mind
Confidants betray you.
Sometimes, friends are hard to find.
Childless in your 40’s.
“Will I ever be a mother?”
Inside an unfamiliar place
Near no sister or no brother.
You’re in the doctor’s office
And hear devastating news.
You lose your hair to chemo.
Indeed, no one gets to choose.
Your marriage ends abruptly.
He left you with no choice.
And for others, it’s the silence.
Separated from His Voice.
Adversity just happens
and no one gets a pass.
But this- your devastation,
is God’s Holy Master Class
Yes, this strong Professor
is bolder than the rest,
His challenges are brutal
and He’s silent in the test.
He’s far above all reason
––mysterious is He.
His text book is His Word.
His school–– adversity.
But in each fearful crisis,
we’re cradled by the light
There’s joy within the suffering,
There’s peace amidst the fight
Within our devastation
––the bleak, forbidding war
God shakes us in our deadness,
with His fearsome roar
What we assumed would end us,
And our melancholy tales
speaks only of His grandeur,
His timing never fails.
And in our silent terror,
He’s not worried in the least
Despite how darkness lingers
in the belly of the beast.

Man of sorrows what a name

for the Son of God, who came.

Phillip Bliss

I may not know you, but I know something about you. You’ve learned so much more about life through failure, suffering and pain than you have through pleasure and success. Your sorrow is intimacy and the people all around you, with smiles and small talk, add nothing to the transcendence of life. Sorrow is the gift no one prays to receive. And yet when sorrow comes it brings clarity, intimacy and a desire to change.

You’re not the only one that grieves the evanescence of our time on this blue marble. Jesus grieved, wept, and lamented as well. He wept at the tomb of a friend. He mourned a city lost in the crippling legalism of alien liturgy and legalistic isolation.

When I look at my life, I, too, grieve. I grieve the obsessions I embraced that foolishly looked like safety and humility, when in fact they only gave birth to deeper dangers and pride.

Like you, Jesus loved someone with no reciprocation.

Like you, Jesus saw promises and covenants dispatched in a moment.

Like you, Jesus felt the shame of false accusation.

He showed us how to rise above the arrow-paths of a thousand earthly sorrows.

“Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling the secret of who you are, but more often than not of the mystery of where you have come from and are summoning you to where you should go next.”  
Frederick Buechner

Reflect

Take a moment to identify the things for which you mourn.

Understanding Sorrow

When we grieve over the right things we find a fairer day ahead. The trick is to be able to bury the dead things that must be buried and call upon God to do what only He can do with the rest. We mourn but we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.

Lord, save me from the kind of sorrow that leads to despair and draw me to the sorrow that leads to forgiveness and dancing.

“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.” – George Herbert

How important is it to forgive? Eternally important. 
The past is consuming to the person who doesn’t forgive.