Actually perhaps the 50th, but somehow in my 71 year old spirit, it seemed a new book.
With each annual read through scripture my mind has its context in current events, with a motive still focused on bringing value to my sphere of influence, the local community. My challenge, as you may already sense, is avoiding run-on sentences. It seems that educators in my life have made me aware, but not sufficient to stifle my tendency.
Back to Judges and current events, or should I say the chaos of our day. Though the Israel of Joshua’s day seemed quite the challenge for those willing to take a stab (some literally) at leadership, our beloved USA may now rival this biblical narrative.
Having now given at least 45 years to a sense of calling to cities (with a few exceptions, municipalities in and around North Carolina), it is becoming obvious as to how local municipalities shape the leadership of their state, and for those who escape serious political failure, our nation. Well, typically!
As I muse this early morning, we do have quite the exception currently. Apart from sufficient wealth (more and more required for any elected office), and limited television celebrity (we tested this with Ronald Reagan, whom I still count as a favorite), our current President has no experience in political office.
How did he get there? I suspect by inflaming an electorate, totally frustrated by a partisan polarity, no longer able to collaborate for the greater good in a civil fashion.
My sense, we live in a country that once boasted of religious anchoring, much like Isreal. Yet now, equally diminished in her righteousness and justice, the USA represents a growing culture seemingly missed by the institutional church. Interestingly however, still claiming a depth of spirituality among both “Dones” and “Nones.”
Now that I think about it, perhaps the Institutional Church has become victim to her own caution, “having a form of godliness, yet denying the power thereof”?
She now seems to have set out on a mission to once again control “her” nation by political means?
“In those days, Isreal had no king.” Judges 18:1
Perhaps our current chaos is God saying, “How’s that working for you?”
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