From Whence Came the Poet
On this day (Jan 15) in 2022, we officially said goodbye to the father of many. My sibling family is a large one consisting of both sisters and brothers. Some are half-siblings, step-siblings, and adopted siblings, but they are all mine. The sister I was raised with has her own special place in my heart and life, but I carry each of my siblings in pockets of my heart—and often to God’s throne in prayer.
You see, I am the first born to this man who was wild yet called. His life was a wrestling match of soul and spirit with a God who never gave up on him. He ran from God geographically (though that’s not truly possible), and he ran emotionally, but he always came back. Whether it was a grenade in the face when his tunnel rat duties got him too close to the enemy in Vietnam, or a moment when lyrics or poetry came pouring out of him to remind him that God still loved and pursued him, something was always pulling him back to a place to consider God again.
He left my mom and sister and I just after I turned 5 years old. My mom kept all his pictures and told me stories of things like his interview with Jerry Dunphy after the incident in Vietnam. She said he was in a hospital bed and told the reporter that he prayed for God to give him his eyesight back, so he could see his girls. My favorite picture was the one with guys from his Brave Lions group that showed my name tattooed on his arm. And, yes, I wrote a song about that tattoo.
The years after that were scattered and chaotic. He had multiple marriages and other children. I struggled with my mom’s emotional and spiritual issues. But something always made this little girl long for her daddy. One winter, as a teenager, I ran away and found him in Kansas. I didn’t stay long, and I’ll share that story in another post, but it wasn’t time for us to be a permanent family yet. During that short time, though, I got to see his poetic, musical, and artistic sides. I was only gifted the ability to write poetry and sing. I’ve tried to learn an instrument, but it just never settled with me, and drawing without the help of technology never came naturally. But I love that I can see him as the DNA source of my love for words.
Somehow, that thing of finding himself oft pursued by The Lord also came to me. In my case, I was looking for deeper meaning more than a good time party, but it still filled my life with a mix of dead-ends and a few major moments with God before I willingly gave my life to Him.
As I’ve met and gotten to know my siblings, I’ve found similar stories in their life journeys. Some have finally let God catch up to them, and some are still looking for other answers. But I still call our journeys Grace by DNA because it seems we all took pieces from our shared father’s journey and made them part of our own journeys. I’ll be gathering those journey stories into a book I started back in 2020, but I’ll tell you bits and pieces here in this blog.
While writing this post, I searched and searched for the tattoo song, but I cannot find it right now, so I guess it’s not time to share it. The gist is a comparison of my father’s tattoo with the carved names in the midst of God’s palm, and it’s called Daddy Can Never Forget Me. It talks about how even if he tried to have it removed, the scar would always remind him of me, and then it talks about the nail scars in Jesus’ hands. I sent the lyrics to my dad at one point, along with a letter reminding him that God could never forget him either. He said it made him cry, and I hope it planted a seed that helped to bring him back to The Lord in his last years.
We did have some periods of distance between us through the years, just as I had times where I was distant from my Heavenly Father. But, thankfully, Dad and I didn’t give up on each other. And God never gave up on either of us as He led us to an eventual reconciliation before Dad left this world in 2021.
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Promised Land Stake Out
Today’s section runs from Genesis 23:17 through Genesis 24:9 and begins with the purchase of land for Sarah’s burial. Apparently, burying his wife has reminded Abraham of his own mortality. He calls in his longest term (aka most faithful) servant and makes a request from him about the future of Isaac. I’m guessing Abraham has been praying about a wife for him because he tells the servant what steps to take and assures him that an angel will go before him to bless him in his efforts.
The servant takes an oath (signified by placing his hand under Abraham’s thigh, but I haven’t yet learned what that practice means) that he will do all Abraham asks. Mainly, Abraham wants to make sure that his son does not marry into the foreigners of the land where they dwell as strangers, but he also does not want his son to go back and live in their homeland. He is dependant on this faithful servant to go to Abraham’s birth land and find a wife to bring back to him.
If I were to tell the story in a modern way to make it easier for myself, I would say that Abraham is like a life-long American missionary that has been told to claim a particular land for God. That missionary might have a son that is marrying age, so he has someone go back to the states to find an American wife for his son. He doesn’t want his son to go back to America yet himself because they still have much work to do, and he wants his son to stay until the word of God to them has been fulfilled. Abraham said it this way in Chapter 24, verses 6 & 7, “See to it that you don’t bring my son back there. Adonai, the God of heaven — who took me away from my father’s house and away from the land I was born in, who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘I will give this land to your descendants’–he will send his angel ahead of you; and you are to bring a wife for my son from there.”
I imagine Abraham was still trusting God to fulfill the promise of giving that land to his descendants, so his descendant had to stay there until that was done. And maybe Abraham was even a little concerned that if Isaac went to visit another land, he might be enamored by something new and want to stay there rather than continue to stake out the place of promise. And I think this is a good thing for us to remember as well. Sometimes, it may seem like a long period of waiting to receive something God has promised us, but if we continue to have faith, trust God, and stake out the promise, it will be just as God has promised it will be. Bless God for ALL His promises and blessings!
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Proverbs 1 – When Wisdom Comes Calling
From https://www.youversion.com/bible/1/pro.1.kjv (Using KJV for quotes because it’s public domain)…
23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord:
30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
GOD’S WAY JUST WORKS–IT REALLY DOES
The Message Bible calls the Proverbs “A Manual for Living.” And it can be that for anyone who is willing to apply it. Wisdom in this book is in the feminine which is also the way much of Scripture related to the Holy Spirit is written. You could say it’s the “mothering” side of Our Creator. While Daddy is making the rules, Mom is explaining to us why it is in our best interest to follow them. It’s a picture of the wholeness of God’s love for us if ever I’ve seen one.
So what about those harsh-sounding warnings of laughter in the face of our trials? I used to think that was so cruel to even think God would laugh at me and mock when my fear came upon me. It was even worse to think He would not be there for me when I called upon Him. But through much study, I’ve found this is referring to the spirit of wisdom. In a brief thought, it is simply saying, “Because you didn’t listen to wisdom to keep yourself out of a big mess, you’re gonna be laying there crying, ‘I don’t know what to do, now,’ and you won’t be able to find the right answer.”
God’s mercy is new every morning, and He gets us out of a lot of self-inflicted bondage, but He’s not in the business of going around plucking us out of every entanglement we get ourselves into. If we’ve learned the fire is hot and we stick a hand in it anyway, He’s not going to stop it from burning us. If we knew from the wisdom in the depths of our souls that getting involved with the good-looker that has caught our attention, and then we end up brokenhearted like others who followed the same trail before we did, Wisdom will say, “What made you think that the same thing would not happen to you?”
So, today, let’s heed what this passage brings to us. Let’s put God in the proper place in our lives, on His throne and above us as Lord of our whole lives, and then listen when He speaks. Whether He speaks through our hearts, through His written word, or through others He brings on our paths to lead us, let’s have the fear (respect) that will cause us to listen to His wisdom like a child listens to his nurturing mother. When we do that, we have the promise that ends this chapter. As Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “First pay attention to me, and then relax. Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”
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Like Father, Like Son
We have another very short reading today. This one runs from Genesis 26:6 through Genesis 26:12; just seven verses. And in today’s story, we have almost a repeat of the story between Abraham and Sarah, only this time it is between Isaac and Rebekah.
So what is it with these guys who look for a loophole to saying they’re married for fear their women will be taken, and they (the husbands) will be put to death? Was that an Egyptian custom back then? If so, I haven’t learned about it yet, but it sure doesn’t sound like a nice one. Whatever it was, Isaac did exactly as his father did with King Abimelech and told people that his wife was his sister. And then, just as happened with Sarah, the King spotted the two of them together acting more like lovers than friends, and he knew.
After seeing them, Abimelech confronted Isaac with the possibility that he could have brought a curse on his entire kingdom if anyone had slept with Rebekah. Then, since Isaac advised him of why he did it, the king declared to the entire nation that they were not to touch Isaac or Rebekah, and that the penalty for doing so would be death. And once that was done, Isaac went about his work, and whatever crops he planted that year yielded him one-hundred fold. And, again like his father, Abraham, it says that God blessed him.
These shorter readings do make it a bit harder on me to come up with much commentary, but I’m wrestling a bit more tonight because my mind is thoroughly in fiction mode from writing my NaNo story. I’m wanting to stop and describe the scene here and everything. But I think you, my dear readers, understand the gist of this little story anyway. So I’m thankful you stopped by to see what’s happening in the progression of the Bible story, and I’m thankful to say I have also surpassed 6400 words in my novel efforts. We will visit again tomorrow when we see how Isaac deals with men who get jealous of God’s blessings on him. Bye for now and may God richly bless you and your children and beyond.
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November 3, 2013 Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Abimelech, Abraham, Adonai, Almighty, Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible reading, Bible study, blessing, Complete Jewish Bible, Creator, crop, crystalwriter, curse, farm, father, fear of death, fib, Genesis, God, Holy Bible, Isaac, king, lie, like father like son, Lord, Old Covenant, Old Testament, one hundred percent, Parashah, planting, Portions, Rebekah, Rivkah, Sarah, Scripture, sister, son, The Complete Jewish Bible, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, wife, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord, www.biblegateway.com, Yahveh, Yahweh, yield, Yitzchak | Leave a comment