Chapter-a-Day 2 Kings 3

But considering—bring me a minstrel." (When a minstrel played, the power of God came on Elisha.) 2 Kings 3:15 (MSG)

A few months ago, our church published a new pictoral directory. It's like a phone book with pictures. After receiving it, my wife and I sat on the couch and went through it. We attend a large church with four Sunday morning services, so there are a lot of people. Wendy and I are trying to be more intentional about getting to know people so we tried to pick out some of the families who regularly attend the 10:30 service, which we call home.

"Oh there's the [pick a name, any name] family," Wendy would say.

"Hmmmm. I don't recognize them," I responded, with a slight shake of my head.

"But they always sit [pick a spot, any spot]," my wife would exclaim with incredulity as she described how many rows and seats away this particular family usually sat from our normal stage right, back row seats.

This conversation was repeated.

Several times.

My wife tends to think that I'm really inobservant, and I won't argue that point. She has a lot of evidence with which she could convince any jury. Nevertheless, when I'm sitting in church and the music starts, I tend to feel like I'm transported to a different place. My focus narrows and everything around me tends to fade. When I'm at worship and the minstrels are skillfully doing their thing, it's just me and God in the room. (note to my wife: This isn't an excuse for not observing and knowing who the people are around me, just a reason).

How interesting that Elisha called on a musician when he desired to consult with God. Music is often a creative conduit for God's Spirit to move and speak.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and chrismoncus

Comments

[kr]

10 The king of Israel said, "Bad news! God has gotten us three kings out here to dump us into the hand of Moab."

We had a big discussion at small group last week about Haiti. Does God allow bad things to happen? Does He cause them to happen? This is the age-old discussion that will never be answered. We could discuss this until eternity and never agree and never come to a conclusion. What I DO know is that God works through bad things. This job loss, while bad, has allowed me to again connect with God like I hadn't in quite a while. Makes me wonder if that is happening in Haiti too.