Dave Dishman

Guidance from Overlooked Men and Women of the Bible

Author: Dave Dishman (Page 282 of 481)

be still and know

Take a Walk Under the Stars

July 6, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I enjoy a glance up at the stars when taking out the trash or getting home late, or just walking outside for a few minutes before locking up for the night.

But seeing the stars in all their glory involves moving away from ambient light and spending more than a few seconds peering at the heavens. Stargazing involves slowing and stillness. Only when our frenetic days fade to quiet do the stars come out.

The Lord speaks of a similar practice: Be still and know that I am God.

Like stargazing, stillness brings out the depth and nuance and brightness of the Lord. It takes quiet and calm to consider his ways. Exactly the opposite of what my daily intake of social media, news channels, and entertainment brings. There are times for these I suppose, but limited. I don’t find the Lord in those places.

Perhaps many of us feel closer to the Lord when outdoors because it’s calmer out there. Our hearts are stiller in the woods than on the freeway.

Loads of people gaze at the stars and grow convinced there must be a God. Stillness under the stars opens us to the one who spoke and flung those very stars into space.

So, in the warmth of a summer evening, stroll outside and enjoy the stars. There’s no better way to be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Ryan Hutton

not chained

Unchain At Your Own Risk

July 5, 2022 / / 0 Comments

My team trained into Romania as undercover missionaries. The strict communist government forbade contraband—Bibles in particular—from entering the country. But each team member took one anyway. I placed my Bible in the bottom of my sleeping bag, then rolled the bag up tight and stuck it down in my pack. We sat pensively as inspectors questioned us at the border. They poked around, but seeing no threat stamped our passports and sent us on.

My fellow college students and I represented no threat. But those hidden Bibles carried seeds of destruction for communist ideology. We gave each one to a different pastor we met in secretive mountain camps. I watched grown men weep when they held a complete Bible for the first time (they possessed only a few pages of a Bible, or handwritten copies of various passages).

I grasped the privilege of unfettered access to the scriptures. Entire governments committed vast resources to eradicating Bibles, while fervent believers endured great personal risk to get one. I’ve never taken a Bible for granted since.

Two thousand years previously, Paul reminded a young pastor that God’s word is not chained.

Communists tried to chain the scriptures throughout Eastern Europe because of the inherent danger to their authority found in the book. Give people free access to the Bible and God replaces the primacy of ideology or state or even self.

Don’t hinder the scriptures—unchain them.

On my shelf sits an embarrassment of riches—multiple Bibles in various translations and styles. I allow my own chains to bind, like busyness, or scrolling my phone, or my desire for entertainment, or laziness, or whispers from the enemy telling me to get to it later. I’m tempted to layer on chains.

But only when I unchain God’s word do I unchain the rest of my life, and that’s worth the risks it brings.

2 Timothy 2 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Thomas Kinto

grandma

Grandma’s Got It Going On

July 4, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Genuine faith never appears out of thin air. Timothy absorbed it from his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois. Paul knew them both and perceived their faith as the spring that watered the flowering of Timothy’s commitment to the Lord. The text mentions neither Timothy’s father, who was thought to be Greek, nor Timothy’s grandfather. Timothy’s faith developed from his matriarchal lineage.

A strong and sincere faith is not guaranteed from one generation to the next. Many well-meaning parents apply all the religious parenting techniques currently in vogue only to see their children reject the faith, or ignore the faith, or quietly set the faith aside. Christianity is only one generation deep. Every generation must believe afresh. Lois did something right. Too bad we don’t know her practices as we could use them to develop a series of books, podcasts and video guides on how to raise children of faith. We could dub it the “Lois-ization” of our children. I would have bought it when my kids were little. However, we do own one clue about her methodology—her faith is described as sincere.

Sincere is defined as being free from pretenses or deceit; not hypocritical, genuine, whole-hearted, real, honest, frank, upfront, candid, on the level, pure. Our children sniff out hypocrisy in our lives and our words as parents. When we act one way in front of others and a totally different way at home, the kids notice. They start to surmise that the Christian faith that their parents profess is not fully realized, not efficacious, and not deeply meaningful. Kids correctly deduce that if that’s all there is to the Christian faith, then no need to waste their time here. Plenty of other good things to pursue on a Sunday morning.

This was not true of Lois—her faith molded Timothy. You are never alone as you live out your faith. Our sincerity does not fade away in vain, even if we do not see the results. Two old sayings come to mind when I think of Lois and the many godly grandmothers who followed in her path. The first reminds us that the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. Good grand-parenting imprints qualities on the following generations. If another old saying is true, that our most important contributions are the ones we leave behind, then the legacy left by Lois will be hard to surpass.

Forever stamped in Scripture, this quiet grandmother’s endowment offers us much to ponder as parents, grandparents and leaders.

From Seers, Sayers, Schemers & Saints and 2 Timothy 1

Photo by Raul Petri

the great game

Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Enemies Closer

July 3, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Poor Solomon. We don’t read about him marrying the love of his life. His book Song of Solomon speaks of love, so perhaps he found love among one of his 700 wives. But his other marriages solidified treaties and non-aggression pacts with neighboring countries, and the most politically advantageous involved Pharaoh’s daughter.

Marrying into the Egyptian royal family undergirded Solomon’s wealth and power. Pharaoh wanted to pull Israel close, and Solomon hoped to pacify his powerful neighbor. Both got what they wanted from the deal, and even Pharaoh’s daughter got a palace, so what’s not to like?

But Pharaoh (and his successors) held more than one card. At the same time the Egyptian rulers smiled at Solomon, they welcomed in at least two men who hoped to overthrow him. These rebels found homes and resources and allies in Egypt. Destabilization featured highly in the foreign policy of Egypt.

Solomon surely understood the great game. In his wisdom he knew Pharaoh coveted the wealth of Egypt’s former slaves. Solomon did all he could to secure his nation’s borders and create strong defenses. The nods of Pharaoh hid the darkness of his schemes, which Solomon saw clearly.

Unfortunately, Solomon spurned his best and surest defense against Pharaoh and his rebels—devotion to the Lord:

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not totally devoted to the Lord his God…he followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

Solomon turned his people away from their most powerful defender. A king who had it all left a bitter legacy, along with a keen lesson for me as I attempt to live a life of consistent faith to the end of my years.

1 Kings 11 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by GR Stocks

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