Not my future son-in-law & other reflections on crazy old testament stories

For part of my creative energies today, I want to spend a little time reflecting on some reading I've been doing. After countless years of failing to read my bible on any sort of consistent basis, my husband has recently invited me into his morning reading ritual so that I have finally gotten a regular taste of scripture again. Not only has this been a great way for us to spend time together each morning, its given us both lots of food for thought - or on some mornings, just shock and awe. There is some crazy stuff in the bible, I must say! And now that I have a little woman growing in my belly, it has me considering some possibilities that never crossed my mind before. I will likely have a daughter who wants to get married someday, and there's a good chance we might clash in our opinions about an appropriate husband. So before she even makes it out of the womb, I would like to point out two character types I really hope she will avoid. Apparently they were men God saw right to use for His purposes, and they both did a lot of good for Israel, but that still doesn't make them right for my daughter. [side note: Baby Girl just started squirming quite vigorously in my belly as I am typing this - do you think she knows what I'm writing about?]

Not-son-in-law #1: Gideon (Judges 6-8) Our first introduction to this guy is when an angel of the Lord appears to him and refers to him as "you mighty warrior" - seems like a good, respectable start. But right out the gate, the guy is whining back at the angel, "if God is with us, why are bad things happening to us?"

[back story: the land had had rest for 40 years after Deborah judged the people of Israel and used Barak to destroy their enemy, the king of Canaan. (side note to back story: Barak is a good leader, but he insists on Deborah's assistance in battle, and ultimately another woman gets the real glory for their victory. I'm personally impressed with how another Barak, Obama that is, has elevated women to positions of power lately - through supreme court and other nominations. Maybe there's something in the name that makes these guys so supportive of us women?) But then, as they do, the Israelites start doing evil again, so God punishes them by handing them over to Midean for 7 years. Midean doesn't exactly treat Israel as they'd prefer, they become impoverished, and cry out to God for help. God is now responding to their cry by raising up Gideon to fight for them, even though they don't exactly deserve any help.]

God gives Gideon a command, but Gideon responds, "but I can't do it." God says He'll do it for him, Gideon comes back and asks for a sign. An angel sets some food on fire, Gideon is finally satisfied. So God asks Gideon to offer a sacrifice to Him, Gideon's too afraid of peer pressure. And so it goes with Gideon, who despite his whining, excuses, and constant fear, is indeed used by God to win great victories for Israel and restore God as Israel's god, over false idols. Of course, at the end of his life, Gideon makes an idol and Israel prostitutes itself to it and it is a snare to Gideon and his family (including 70 sons, is that reason enough not to want him for my daughter? that's just too many kids). And as soon as he dies, Israel fully relapses and is back to worshipping another god instead.

In summary, Gideon fails to recognize how God is working in Israel, whines, makes constant excuses, and has pretty much zero courage. Sounds like a pretty wimpy marriage prospect, and a fool to boot. Kudos to him for managing to find "many wives," I just don't envy all his mothers-in-law. So - we're looking for a guy with a little more courage, which brings me to . . .

Not-son-in-law #2: Samson (Judges 13-16) Samson lacks nothing in the courage department, he is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Gideon all together. Again, things start out well, he comes to us through an angel of the Lord as well, who instructs his mother to raise him as a nazirite - a man dedicated to the Lord's service. But as he grows up, he puts Narcissus's vanity to shame. This guy would walk around with a t-shirt proclaiming, "I'm awesome," but he's probably too busy finding excuses to keep his shirt off to show off his chest. He demands to receive what pleases him, is cocky an conniving - using riddles to mock those he doesn't like, and he is weak for the ladies (especially the Philistine, aka enemy, women). Everything this guy does has to do with getting a wife or prostitute he wants for himself, and killing people who get in his way. Turns out the people he kills are Israel's enemy and somehow this counts as judging Israel for 20 years, but this guy's intentions are hardly anything to include in a wedding toast.

I guess what I'm looking for here is some appropriate humility, trust in God to use him well, and fidelity. I guess these traits make up for a fairly tall order, so I should start praying for this guy now.

On a totally unrelated note, the last crazy biblical story to reflect on real quick has to do with the Philistines again. In I Samuel 5, the Philistines capture the ark of God from the Israelites and put it in their temple next to their idol, Dagon. They leave it there over night, go to it the next morning and find that Dagon has fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. They put him upright, but the next day, same thing happens again. They find Dagon fallen before the ark, this time, but this time his head and his hands have fallen off and only the trunk remains. This puts a whole new spin on Luke 19:40, which says that if we do not worship God, the rocks will cry out - apparently even if those rocks have been shaped to form an idol for another religion. wow.

This story brought back an image I shot in a photograph once. Several years ago, I studied abroad in Sri Lanka. One day we journeyed to some Buddhist holy sites during one of the largest religious festivals of the year. We were surrounded by swarms of worshipers carrying flowers and other offerings.

[side bar: I can't avoid recounting here, that one worshiper was a little girl carrying some large flowers about half the size of her whole body. As she walked along the path, a gang of monkeys came out of the trees, slapped her in the face, and snatched the flowers out of her hand to take back to the side of the road where they boldly proceeded to tear into the flowers for a hearty snack, while the little girl stared on in paralyzed astonishment. One might interpret this and say that monkeys [prior to this trip, my favorite animals] are good Christians, preventing idol worship or something, but we also witnessed monkeys descending from another tree, swiping my friend Chase's bible out of his hands, and running back up the tree to divide sections of the bible amongst themselves to eat, as pages of Revelations rained down upon us. So mostly, monkeys are just mischievous and probably opposed to organized religion all together. I decided my new favorite animal is the elephant.]

Anyways . . . as we walked around these holy sites, I caught a glimpse of some stone figures off in the back behind one of the dagobas (A dagoba is a dome enshrining sacred relics or the bodily remains of the Buddha, or articles used by Him like the alms bowl and other objects of veneration). I realize the figure might not technically be considered an idol, but it clearly was intended to be a sacred object at least, and I wonder if this is something like what Dagon looked like after he got up close and personal with the ark of the Lord:

No head [I think I found the head near by, but not close enough to capture in the shot] and no hands. Uncanny resemblance isn't it? Anyways - crazy story, and the Old Testament is just full of them. If you haven't read it before, or in a while, you should check it out.