The Prodigal Blog Returns

I'm sure you noticed that the last post is almost 2 months old already. The blog pretty much ran off and squandered it's viewership only to return now, hat in hand, without a good excuse for having left in the first place. But we will welcome it back, right?! I must say I feel somewhat responsible in that I became too preoccupied with wedding preparations and such to give the blog its fair attention. My sincerest apologies for the absence of posts lately. On the bright side, Julie and I are married now!

Last night, the Skaggs were gracious enough to host and cook some amazing breakfast food with a decidedly custard-ish brownie for dessert. I still give them five stars, though.

We had missed a lot of discussion over the last few weeks, between Julie and me leaving on our honeymoon, Bud going to Texas for work, and Brandon working late for a Go Live. As a result, we didn't quite make it to talking about Ecclesiastes 8. Instead, we discussed all the material we had read since we last met.

I think everybody enjoyed the book of Nehemiah. We jokingly commented that his character didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the Bible, because he is never mentioned doing anything wrong! What Nehemiah does do is love his God so much that he is inconsolably sad upon learning of the destruction of the wall around His holy city, risking his life to be openly sad in front of the king he served. Nehemiah constantly prays to God for his strength and asks God for His favor and mercy when he does His work. His actions are powerful in their selflessness.

The book establishes a good example of how to confess through worship when the Israelites tell a brief history of God's compassion, mercy, and justice in dealing with them as they oscillate between obedience and rebellion. They are moved to the point of repenting and drafting an agreement to which their leaders and priests attached their seals. Then, not so many years later, Nehemiah finds the people of Jerusalem doing the very things they had agreed in writing not to do. What a fickle people! How encouraging it is that God still loved a people with faith as inconsistent as our own.

I'm pretty sure we all found the first half of Ecclesiastes to be kind of a downer. The author is not at all afraid to call something meaningless if it has no bearing on the Kingdom of God. But there are also some positive notes we found. For example, it is good to be joyful in your circumstances, because you are living the days God has given you. Also, it is impossible to understand everything "under the sun." (That last one helped Peter to stop thinking so hard!) There were many other phrases that people found powerful as well, but I don't have room to list them all here.

Next week we will be enjoying fellowship with one another (host tbd). The week after that we should be able to discuss the rest of Ecclesiastes and the first part of Isaiah. I will try to post some sort of a reading calendar to help people keep track of all these books.

God Bless!