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Political Pressure Sharpens Your Focus
The political pressures on the people described in 2 Chronicles 10-12 resonate with today’s realities. In 2 Chronicles 10:6-16, newly-crowned King Rehoboam chose the bad advice of his peers rather than the wisdom of the elders who were the advisors and leaders of people in his land. There was already bad blood between the northern 10 tribes and the southern two tribes (Judah and Benjamin). The farther away the tribes settled from the central point of worship first at Shiloh then at Gibeah and now at Jerusalem, the less the people were engaged in true YHWH worship. Eighty years earlier, the northern tribes took 7 years to embrace David as…
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Giving Thanks for Everything
Today, some of us will gather around festive tables, eating our fill of roasted turkey, whipped potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, and so we pause today to celebrate —to give thanks—for a year filled with beautiful and hard things. But it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Perhaps there’s a chair at our table sitting empty this year. There’s a longing within us that a smile can’t dull. Maybe there’s financial stress that the holidays only highlight. A festive tablescape and full stomach may make us feel good for a moment, but they cannot fix the hurts and heartaches that we often carry with us…
