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The One thing every Crisis Reveals
Are you in a perpetual crisis or maybe you are not in enough crises?
From breaking a fingernail to facing death, you want to be seen as having a sound mind in a crisis.
Our Biblical Ground Work: 1 Samuel 25
There was a man from Maon who had a rich business. His name was Nabal (meaning: fool) and he was married to Abigail (meaning: my father’s joy) who was of good understanding/intelligent/wise/street smart/of sound mind, she just so happened to be beautiful as well. Nabal was hard and evil with his dealings.
David and his men were living in the area so became a wall around them. Nabal benefited from that wall of protection. David sent some men to ask for food supplies, for a feast, from Nabal. He revealed how hard and evil he is to the men who came from the future king. David is about to do David (man of war 1 Chronicles 28:3) when Abigail steps in.
Abigail, after being told about the incident, jumped right into action to make sure her family business would not be destroyed by David. She filled bushels full of food and strapped them to her donkeys. She herself rode a donkey and met up with David. Knowing it would take her some time to prepare, and knowing that David would not take any time to seek revenge, she sent her servant ahead of her to tell David she was coming. She went as quickly as she could and staying out of sight of her husband as well.
She confronts David with the most courageous speech in 1 Samuel 25:24-31. As a result of her intelligent actions her house was saved but she still had to tell her husband what she did. She waited for him to be sober then she told him what she had done. When she was finished talking, the Lord struck Nabal with a seizure, which paralyzed him and then killed him 10 days later.
David sent his servants to retrieve Abigail as his wife. Her reply was, “Here is your maidservant, a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” As his wife she would be taken captive by the Amalekites (1 Samuel 30). She spend many years with David in hiding and travelled all over the middle east to avoid Saul. She gave birth to David’s second eldest son named Chileab or Daniel (meaning: God is my judge) (1 Chronicles 3:1). As we read about David’s sons causing him grief, we never hear of this one being involved in any of it. I wonder why?
Our Biblical Life Lesson: A Crisis Reveals Character
Life is filled with the minor events that change our lives to the larger events that shape our existence and our direction in life. Each of these are defining moments. They are born out of some kind of crisis, from some event that some one has lost control over.
COVID-19 is a great example of a life event out of control. A pandemic is something no one can control except our Lord. He is controlling it at this moment and will keep controlling it until He is ready to put it to an end.
Abigail, as David’s wife, has seen many things happen from the threat of death to being held hostage by the Amalekites, famine to pandemics, peace and war, running from Saul to running from Absalom. In which of these do you think she lost her head? None I suppose, what about you?
Meet with us in The Bible Gals as we discuss the nature of crisis and how it is meant to reveal our character.
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Bitterness Grows Deep into Michal
When you make a choice, do you plant yourself in the Bible first or do you make it and check later?
We all know it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Michal made her decision regardless of her surroundings and annoyed her daddy who had much to much power over her.
Our Biblical Ground Work: 1 & 2 Samuel
Michal is the younger of Saul’s two daughters. Does she display the younger ones characteristics? Not at the beginning but near the end of our story you will see she does. She got away with deceiving her father and she never had to live up to any standard as her older sister would have to. Although I do have to say that she went through quite a bit because she was used, by her father, as a pawn in his game.
As soon as Saul discovered that David and Michal were in love, the games began. She was offered as reward for battle (1 Samuel 18:27) not thinking that David would succeed where he failed. David and Michal were married, but during their days together Saul was of the mind to kill David. Not knowing what love actually means, Saul was surprised his daughter would save his enemy alive (1 Samuel 19:11-17).
Saul gets angry again at David and gives Michal, his wife, to another man (1 Samuel 25:44). War breaks out between the Philistines and Israel again. Saul is killed and David begins to take ownership of his anointing but before he will take control of Israel he asks for his wife back but he is not getting the same woman back he left.
She moves into the kings castle with all his other wives, going from being the one wife of one man into the harem of wives David has collected (2 Samuel 3:13-14). As she is living in the castle, David is called to bring the Ark into the City of David. She sees him dancing and whirling and despises him in her heart. This would be the end of her life as she knew it (2 Samuel 6:16-23) because he put her away.
O no, that is not all. There was famine in the land so David went to the Lord to inquired about it. Turns out the Gibeonites wanted payment for what Saul had done to them, against their past covenant with the Israelites, and again Michal is thrown under the proverbial bus again (2 Samuel 21:1-14). How much can one queen take?
Our Biblical Life Lesson: Bitterness becomes a deep root because we don’t repent from the very first seed.
There was a lot of things that happened to Michal as you can read rom her story above. Her father taught her well about bitterness. Saul was bitter against David because he stole his accolades. That original weed of bitterness was never repented of, so all the rest of the reasons Saul hated David grew from that one bitter experience.
I can be a Bitter Batilda too. I have had some very nasty stuff happen to me but is that what the Lord wants from me. I say, “NO!” he doesn’t want that for any of His children so He leads you over some pretty big sink holes so when you are at the bottom of one you will realize how deep your bitterness root runs.
Join us in The Bible Gals Sisterhood Wednesday as we discuss the Biblical Power Tools to help you see the root and spray some Weed-X on it.
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What it is like to have a desire met by God
Have you been asking the Lord for something for a long time? Do you believe your Christian life will be fulfilled upon receipt of it?
You and Hannah have something great in common. The Lord has given you a desire that only He can fulfill. He does that with each and every one of us so that we can see clearly what He desires for us. Let’s see how He lead Hannah to Himself and fulfilled His desire for her.
Our Biblical Ground Work: 1 Samuel 1-6
Around 1200 B.C., in the mountains of Ephraim, lived a man named Elkanah. He had two wives and loved one more than the other, Hannah (sound familiar). Pininnah, his second wife, began a rivalry with Hannah because Hannah was barren.
Elkanah brought his family from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. On this particular year Hannah was at her very lowest emotionally and brought her petition to the Lord at the tabernacle. She couldn’t eat and cried bitterly. Her husband was of no consolation and Pininnah was torturing her because of her barrenness.
She went to the tabernacle to pray, alone, to the Lord of Hosts to beg Him for a child, a son. “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.” 1 Samuel 1:11
The Lord was indeed gracious to her and she became pregnant with a son. She cared for him and weaned him. She brought him to the tabernacle of God and gave him to the service of the Lord when he was approximately three years old. She continued to care for him by bringing him clothing every year. This child grew in favour of God and man. His name is Samuel, the greatest prophet to God in all of history.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: As His desire for you grows, so will your desperate need for Him.
There is nothing that we desire that the Lord has not put into our heart to desire. He gives us a deeper desire for it and the eyes to see that only He can provide it. He then rewards us with it and many more after that. Hannah was rewarded with three more sons and two daughters (1 Samuel 2:21) for going to the Lord.
Her great work for the Lord has never been forgotten. Hannah’s name means grace and it was God’s grace that brought her to the tabernacle to pray. And His grace that gave her peace as she walk away from Shiloh. He was with her all long. Using Pininnah’s chastisement to want Samuel more. Using her husband to drive her to the tabernacle to pray. Using Eli to bless her.
Every bit of it was God’s grace. I don’t know where you are at today but God is behind it all. What are your desires? Is everything happening right now driving you to desire it more? Come to the throne and boldly ask for it.
I invite you to come in deeper with me in The Bible Gals community this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools for valuing our integrity while valuing people.
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Ruth, A Daughter with Integrity
What kind of woman do you think you are? Does your life compare to Ruth? Would you describe yourself as a daughter with integrity toward Jesus?
We compare ourselves to others to much these days. How we deal with mother. How we deal with children. How we deal with illegals. How we deal with ethnic backgrounds. We are stressed out by these dealings. Let’s see how did Ruth dealt with all of this?
Our Biblical Ground Work: Ruth
Ruth comes onto the scene as the wife of one of Naomi’s sons. He dies and his brother dies as well. Ruth is a young widow living with another young widow and her widowed mother-in-law. There is no men left and in those days men were the bread winners.
It is repeated to us over and over again that Ruth is a Moabite. A foreigner to the people of Israel. A relative of the people of Israel through Lot but a foreigner all the same. A relative of Naomi through marriage but nonetheless a foreigner.
Naomi was brought to Moab by her husband but is going home to Bethlehem without him. Ruth was born in Moab, but linked to Bethlehem through her husband family. She chose to remain linked to Bethlehem through her mother-in-law and she goes with Naomi to live in Bethlehem as a foreigner.
Ruth and Naomi need food so Ruth goes to glean in the fields. She is noticed because Boaz is supposed to notice her. He tells her to stay and work with his women and men so she does. We are told she works hard to provide for herself and her mother-in-law. She is mentored about Israelite living by her mother-in-law and soon lands herself a husband.
She is not only a foreign woman added to the lineage of her father-in-law’s family but into the lineage of king David and Jesus. Her whole identity was transformed for us with this story.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: If your whole identity is based in your integrity, your story can be as brilliant as Ruth’s.
On the surface it looks like Ruth has lost everything, her husband, her land, her family, her gods. We equate that lose to losing self. Ruth did not lose who she was in the process of serving Naomi. She was being herself. Her story is that of love, friendship, servant-hood and integrity.
We can learn to fill our relationships with integrity and still hang onto self in the process. There is great value in serving people with integrity but we need to place value on them first. All people have value but not always do we value them for the role they play in our lives.
I invite you to come in deeper with me in The Bible Gals community this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools for valuing our integrity while valuing people.
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Naomi, A Mother of Integrity
Have you ever been in an environment where integrity is the last thing on the administrators mind? It’s a hard place to thrive.
Have you even been in an environment where integrity is the first thing on the administrators mine? It’s a place where you can thrive.
Naomi created such a place. She was the mother of integrity. She created an environment where her daughter-in-law’s united with her to maintain a stable and cohesive home in which to live. Let’s read the story.
Our Biblical Ground Work: Ruth
Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, moved the family to Moab because there was famine in the land of Israel. He died and so did both of Naomi’s sons, Mahlon and Chilion. Her sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. It is at this point, the story really begins for us. Naomi hears that there is provision in Israel again, so she packs up her clothes to leave Moab for Israel.
Her daughter-in-law’s follow her but she becomes realistic with them. She tells them she cannot provide husbands for them and sends them back to their own families. Ruth is determined to stay with Naomi, so they head back to Israel where they are greeted by the women of the Bethlehem. Naomi no longer wants to be called pleasant, she wants them to think she is bitter.
Naomi and Ruth live together with meagre supplements. Ruth gets permission from Naomi to glean in a field for supplies. She ends up gleaning in Boaz’s field and he notices her. As we all know, towns can talk, so he was already aware of who she was but had not met her until this day. He gives her favour and she goes home with much more than Naomi expected. She wants to know whose field Ruth gleaned in. She knows Boaz and his family ties to her dead husband.
Naomi councils Ruth on the rules of asking Boaz to redeem her family name, and she does exactly what Naomi tells her to do. She comes back with more grains and tells Naomi the whole story. Naomi reassures Ruth that Boaz will not stop working on this very day until this matter is solved. Naomi also does not stop working until her family is taken care of by the best people under God.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: Creating an environment of integrity gives your villagers a place of refuge.
As the city on the hill (Matthew 5:14-16) we are surrounded by people (villagers) who look to us for direction about how the Lord works in Christian lives. We are creating an environment that reflects the Lord Jesus Christ and His direction for us. This environment needs to be a safe place for them.
Creating an environment of integrity gives your villagers a safe place they might not have in their own city. They see cohesion among your villagers that is absent with theirs. They feel honoured by everyone and that makes them long to come back. They know you are who you say you are, because you do what you said you’d do. Your villagers love you because of it.
Do you want to know how to be like Naomi?
I invite you to go deeper with me with The Bible Gals this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools for creating an environment of integrity.
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The Many faces of Manipulation
I know what it is like to be manipulated and to use manipulation to get what I want. It is not something I am proud of. I am especially not proud of using manipulation as a tool.
Samson was the original “Riddler”. I wonder if while they were writing this character into Batman if they were thinking about Samson. Samson used riddles to manipulate people and it is ironic that he was brought down by a few manipulative woman.
Our Biblical Ground Work: Judges 14-16
Samson’s wife would be the start of Samson’s God given assignment to “begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5). He wanted her and he got her but he would regret it afterwards. Many people were killed and much anguish for the Israelites resulted in this unhealthy union filled with manipulation.
His need for sex put him in another vulnerable situation with a prostitute. He saw her is Gaza and went into her. Somehow the Gazites got notified (wink, wink) of his presence and they surrounded the house waiting for him. He slept until mid-night and broke the city gates down, carried them on his shoulders and dropped them on the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron. This left them in a vulnerable situation.
Finally we come to Delilah. We say that she was his downfall but he was his downfall. Sex again was his weakness but his time it went further for him, he fell in love with Delilah. She was paid by the five Philistine leaders 1,100 pieces of silver each (approx. $110,000.00). She was probably given a choice, money or death. She chose the money and began her manipulative plan to earn it.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: To avoid being manipulated avoid being a manipulator.
Samson’s downfall was that he thought he was the master manipulator and could not recognize that he himself was being manipulated. Pride was his downfall. He was manipulated by three women and he manipulated everyone in his path including God.
Manipulators are so proud of their persuasive skills that they think they cannot be manipulated themselves but due to their pride they have a blindness to someone manipulating them. A determined manipulator will use whatever tool they think will work and they are not adverse to picking up new tools to get what they want.
Join The Bible Gals this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools to avoid manipulation.
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The Amazing Vision for Samson’s Mother
My first vision from God was not a burning 🔥 bush moment nor was it from an Angel of the Lord appearing before me. It was simply a picture of what is to come. A two dimensional picture followed by many years of shifting my direction to walk in it.
That is why I love reading these amazing stories of God Himself appearing 💦 before people in the Bible. They show me the possibility of my own story. The evidence of my own vision from God becoming a reality.
Our Biblical Ground Work: Judges 13
The wife of Manoah was barren and the Angel of the Lord ✝️ appeared to her to tell her she is barren but will bear a son. The Angel gave her instructions in what she should do during her pregnancy because this boy would be a Nazarite from conception.
After the Angel was gone she went to tell her husband what had happened. She describe Him as a Man of God with the countenance of the Angel of God 🌟🌟 very awesome 🌟🌟 but that is all she knows. She did not get His Name or ask where He was from.
Manoah asked God to allow Him to return and God listened to Him. As his wife was sitting in the field again the Angel of God came to her. This time she ran and retrieved Manoah.
Manoah questioned Him and was told the whole vision again by the Angel of the Lord. He believed and wanted to worship the Angel when the vision became reality. The Angel shifted Manoah’s direction toward 🔀 God and as he obediently gave to the Lord, he was rewarded with a vision he will never forget.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: The Rewards of shifting our direction are not always tangible but will always be memorable.
If you look at my life, and probably other women’s lives, you would not call us successful but we have rewarding lives. We might have been barren in our own eyes of the visible fruit of God. We have not had that burning bush experience when God tells us what we are going to do in understandable English. There have been small victories 🥳 that got us just a bit closer to our vision than yesterday because we shifted our direction just a hair.
I don’t know why Manoah’s wife was sitting out in the field those two times but when I am sitting out in the field, I feel like I am watching seeds grow. Watching something grow is pain staking and slow. More than once I have gotten up from my seat to plant something faster growing, only to end up back in the field watching the original seeds 🌱 grow again.
With almost every amazing story in the Bible 📖, waiting on the Lord’s plan to grow in you takes just a small shift in direction and obedience to that direction. Just as Manoah and his wife received a great reward, you will reap great reward as well. It may not have been tangible but it will be something they will have NEVER 🤩 forgotten.
Join The Bible Gals here to discuss the 3 Biblical Power Tools for shifting your direction toward Jesus.
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A Brilliant Idea to make Your Promises more Honourable
I raised my kids without making promises to them because I didn’t trust myself to honour them. I knew that there would be times when I would not follow through, for one reason or another, on that promise. The lack of follow through would then be what I was known for rather than all of my other good characteristics.
This idea was not wise because I did not even honour the promises I made to myself. My excuse was that I didn’t know if I would be able to follow through but it was more because I didn’t want to be “expected” to honour them. I learned through this that no one has to say, “I promise,” for people to take it as a promise. When you tell someone you will do something for them, they take that as a promise and expect you to honour it. By the way, so does the Lord, as you will discover with Jephthah and his daughter.
Our Biblical 📖 Ground Work Judges 11:1-12:7
Jephthah was a great warrior who was driven out by his family because he was a product of his father Gilead’s sexual sin. He hung out with lawless men and went about raiding. His great warrior status was remembered by the Israelite elders when the Ammonites wanted to go to war over the land.
They made Jephthah their commander and went to war with the Ammonites. They were successful because the Lord gave them over to them. For Jephthah this victory was going to cost. And He will pay the price out of honour to the Lord. For his daughter though the cost was dearer but she too would honour the Lord by paying the price.
Jephthah made a vow to the Lord that if He would give the Ammonites into his hands, and Jephthah comes back in peace, whatever comes out of his house first, he would give to the Lord as a burnt sacrifice (a tribute to honour God for what He has done). This a vow that would cost him his daughter and both of them would honour it with tremendous hurt. One because he doubted and the other because she wanted to honour it.
Our Biblical 📖 Life Lesson
You can learn how to honour your promises by learning how to make better promises.
The result of me never making promises to people is that I never learned how to take responsibility for following through on my promises. Jephthah’s daughter obviously learned how to do that from her parents. Honour is a great thing to have but honour hurts sometimes. We are avoiding the hurt by never making any promises or we can learn how to make promises that lead us into God vision for us.
Jephthah’s daughter fully understands your dilemma. She was put in an impossible situation by someone else’s vow. Then she answered that vow with a vow of her own. She promised she would return after two months of morning her virginity with her friends. She could have stayed in the mountains, never to be seen again, but she came back to honour God and her father. But mostly she honoured herself and is remembered still today.
Her father did not have to make that vow. As Jephthah was on his way to war the Spirit of the Lord came upon Him and He knew it. You cannot have something like that happen and not feel it. BUT he is still human and doubted his ability to take on the Ammonites. He bargained with the Lord because of his doubt and lost.
If you want a promise that you can honour, make if from a positive mindset, not a negative one. The difference between Jephthah and his daughter was the mindset. He vowed because he didn’t believe and she vowed because she was grateful to the Lord. Which one of them, do you think is easier to follow through with? If you learn how to make your promises from a positive state of mind, your follow through will cause you to be honoured by those around you.
Join us in The Bible Gals as we continue this discussion with The 3 Ways to Follow through on Every Promise Study and 🎥 LIVE.
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3 Reasons to Enjoy those Periods of Adjustments
We have special insight into the life the Lord wants us to live. He reveals information about who He is to us and transforms us using that knowledge. It is during that transformation time that we find ourselves inside a “period of adjustment”.
I know sometimes we see this period as mundane and boring because it is a time of reflection and growth. There isn’t too much going on because we are learning how to be, who this new knowledge requires us to be.
If we allow ourselves to linger, just long enough, in each period of adjustment we will grow into our vision significantly faster than someone who is bucking the change. We can enjoy those periods of adjustment as much as we enjoy the work involved in the working out of our vision. We always need reasons to comply with the Lord so here are three.
Reason 1: Enjoy Your Heart Receiving the Head Knowledge
Remember back to the day you were saved or the time period (I have to use time period because I cannot remember the date.) You walked away from that so stoked and ready to be a Christian BUT you just began a “period of adjustment”.
You have no knowledge about how to act or what to do, so you go back to what you do know, secular living. Christian living is not even on your radar let alone a setting on your GPS. You begin to ask questions about how to live as a Christian. As you ponder the answers to your questions the Lord starts moving some of the answers down into your heart. It becomes a truth building experience with Him.
Reason 2: Enjoy a Wonderful Understanding of Your New Relationships
There is not doubt about salvation changing relationships. The first relational change is your relationships with Jesus. Before there wasn’t one and now there is. Adding a relationship with Jesus tends to complicate. Who are you in this new Christian life with Jesus? Who are you with your spouse, kids and family members? Who are you in every aspect of life?
This period of adjustment gives you the time to ponder who this person is who has this knowledge and how you will relate to others with this new knowledge. Your relationship with Jesus, self and others can be wonderful when you take every period of adjustment as a time to obtain an accurate understanding of theses relationships. It becomes a relationship building experience with Jesus.
Reason 3: Enjoy a Faith Empowered by Jesus
As you spend time in any period of adjustment Jesus has an opportunity to grow you into the person you need to be. Each session of adjusting you go through your faith grows. As your faith grows your vision for the future you grows as well.
Knowing this alone is enough for me to want to sit with Jesus for a period of adjustment, but that is not what is required of us. We are becoming who He created us to be so we can do what He has created us to do. This faith building experience with Jesus is just what we are going to need to move into our vision.
When we walk away from these periods of adjustments we are changed beyond measure. We have had a truth building adjustment, a relationship building adjustment and a faith building adjustment. That is what they are meant to do.
Each adjustment made in your life is a change in direction toward knowing your vision, growing into your vision or growing from your vision. They are all measured and calculated by Jesus to get us into each place we need to be.
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Men Who were Undone by a Woman
Have you ever asked, “Why are those wicked people able to get so far in life?”
Sisera and Abimelech were just such people; wicked and prosperous. I might be jealous of them except I know their end.
Biblical Ground Work
Deborah and Gideon area great stories to tell because they both have unexpected endings.
Sisera was the enemy of the Israelite’s during Deborah’s time. He was the commander of Jabin’s army and a wickedly smart man. He had 900 chariots and harshly oppressed them for 20 years (Judges 4:3).
They call out to the Lord and He sends Deborah, the village builder, to take control of the Israelites. But Deborah is not the one who is responsible for the death of Sisera, Jael is. He was undone by a tent peg and a woman who became a righteous agent of God’s judgment.
The Israelites have 40 years of peace under Deborah but act up again. God handed them over to the Midianites. Gideon, a man of little faith, is charged with freeing them from the Midianites and the Amalekites. Together they were as numerous as locusts.
They are trampled by Gideons 300 man army and the Israelites have peace for another 40 years. But they prostituted themselves with the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.
The story doesn’t end here. Gideons concubine, who lived in Shechem, had a son by him named Abimelech. This son of Gideon is going to cause some trouble that will allow God to use a millstone and a woman as a righteous agent of judgment.
Abimelech decided that he wanted to be king of Israel and rule over its inhabitants. He was successful at securing the kingship for three year BUT God had other plans for him.
Our Biblical Life Lesson
The Sanctuary of God holds the understanding of the end.
We live in a time now where we do not have to look far to see the wicked prospering. It is disheartening to us so we amuse ourselves with stories of grandeur from even more wicked people.
Our salvation from these wicked people is not in the hands of the more wicked, it is in the hands of our God. To get a clearer picture of how our jealous of these wicked people can get out of hand we will read Psalm 73.
I don’t know about you but I have had to bring this before the Lord many times just as I am sure Joseph and David had too. Why do the wicked have the gull to mock God but still have riches and influence while the lovers of God remain poor and lonely?
Asaph asks the same question of God. He came to the conclusion that this is just to profound for Him to understand unless He goes into the secret place with the Lord so He can speak to Jesus about it.
He questioned the Lord like a bear but the Lord still answered Him. He gave Him the understanding of their end which also gives him the understanding of his own end.
Understanding the end is the way to removing jealousy of the wicked as they prosper and being content with the life you are living. God has a plan for you that is all your own. He grows you into it and grows you in it. Just as Jael and Millstone woman were part of God’s plan to undo these men, you are a part of God’s plan to undo the Devil.
Release those wicked people from your mind and allow Jesus to grow you into your vision. Your vision from God is closer than you think.
Sign up at https://m.me/TheBibleGals The “Ready? Set? Goals”, a no cost Biblical Life Lessons Workshop, is beginning September 21/20 in The Bible Gals Sisterhood Community.
Registration ends Thursday September 17 so I can get you ready with your workbook and special instructions.
Sign up today before it is too late.
