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Prayer Requests 2-1-20

Anyone have something to share?

Psalm 2

1 Why do the nations conspire
    and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
    on Zion, my holy mountain.”

7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

   He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
    and I will make the nations your inheritance,
    the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron;
    you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
    be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
    and celebrate his rule with trembling.
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
    and your way will lead to your destruction,
   for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
    Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

9 thoughts on “Prayer Requests 2-1-20”

  1. I was reading in Numbers 30. It’s about vows. I have wondered about them a long time. Still not satisfied.
    I have only made one vow in my life. In the OT, there are 62, in the NT, two. Paul, in Acts (forgot where) shaved his head because of a vow. Another mentions vows in passing.
    A vow is a serious agreement with God in the OT. You just don’t hear about them in Christian circumstances.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I hadn’t thought of that, Mumsee. Turns out, I have made more vows than I thought.
    Not just wedding. When I joined the AF, for instance. Not just a vow to country.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. When I first moved to Nashville, I bought a house a few months later, and my next-door neighbors asked me to work for them. They traveled on business a good part of the year, and they needed someone just a few hours a week, getting the mail, sending out orders, returning phone calls, etc. They asked for a full-year commitment, January to December, because they said it was simply too hard for them to train anyone in a month other than January. I was quite uncomfortable with making a promise of the level I considered it to be, but I committed.

    As the first year came to an end, I was considering telling them I’d work for them another year, and I would make a fairly firm commitment (I will do the full year if at all possible), but circumstances can change over a year, and committing my entire life for a job that turned out to average less than ten hours a week was simply too much. But it turned out that though they liked my work, they knew my real desire was to do more editing, and they said they’d hire someone else. At the time it felt like a fairly big blow, simply because I’d just had two publishers tell me they were changing their policies and wouldn’t be using freelancers anymore (such things come in cycles). At the same time, I was partly relieved–I didn’t like the job or the hourly pay, and the commitment bothered me.

    Several years later they came back to me and said they’d really struggled to find anyone who did it as well as I did, and would I consider working for them again? I didn’t want to, but freelance wasn’t really doing very well, and honestly I needed all the income I could get. But I told them no absolute commitments; I had no plans to do anything else that year, but I couldn’t make a vow-level commitment.

    As it turned out, that was the year I met my husband. Initially we talked about marrying the next spring, but we ended up deciding to marry in late October. I gave them several months notice and said I could help train someone if they needed me to. But I was really, really glad I had stated up front that I couldn’t make an iron-clad commitment, because I think if I had made one, I would have had to go to them and say, “Will you let me out of it, please?” and if they had said no, I would have had to wait to marry. It was just that sort of unexpected contingency that made me not want to lock in a commitment. What if a family member experienced a serious health crisis? What if my home burned down and I decided to move rather than rebuild? What if freelance just wasn’t working out and I needed to take a full-time job? What if I had a serious health issue and technically I “could” do the job, but it wasn’t in my best interest to keep it because it would be better to move closer to family? Life has so many unknowns, and it’s better not to make a commitment that you don’t know for sure you can keep, or with a penalty you can live with. (If you can’t pay your mortgage, you lose your house–you don’t go to debtor’s prison.) Marry only a person you are sure you can live with; take on only debt you are sure you can pay; and accept a job only if you are sure the conditions are ones you can handle. I was really, really glad I accepted that job with an “asterisk.” I felt bad for them having to train someone during the summer, but it just didn’t make sense to wait to marry because of a job that in the second half of the year was only five or six hours a week and not much above minimum wage!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Vows in the Old Testament are serious commitments, generally of a sacrificial nature to show one’s devotion to God. They seem, from Numbers and other passages, tobbe about devoting something to God, whether for sacrifice or service. In Christ, sacrifices are no longer necessary, and we are all dedicated to God be virtue of our position in Christ. What Jesus said about keeping our word really goes back to one of the overarching themes of Scripture, that lies are an abomination to God and that He delights in those who keep their word. The Pharisees had developed ways of getting out of their promises by determining degrees of importance of the oath, but Jesus reminds his hearers that we should stick to what we say. We briefly had a pastor who, when testifying in court, refused to take the witness oath due to his misinterpretation of Jesus’ words – the pastor was the one who later resigned and abandoned family and faith. I disagreed then with the pastor’s interpretation and I still do. It is not about how you make a promise, whether formally or informally, it is about keeping your commitments, however you make them.

    Liked by 3 people

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