Since my last post...

Since my last post, you may have noticed some things in the Bible.  Abraham lied again, Isaac married Rebekah, Jacob stole a blessing and wrestled with an angel, 7 cycles of Judges passed, friends accused Job of sin, Job defended himself, Israel is getting destroyed, Israel will be restored, Jesus preached and taught valuable lessons, and we are done with the book of Romans.  A lot has happened since I last posted.  And I apologize.  I need to be more disciplined with this blogging. 

In today's reading, I found something profound.  The last verse of what we read in Judges says, "In those days, there was no king.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  And if you read today's reading, you'd know there was some messed up stuff going on.  A woman makes an idol to God.  A man hires a Levite, who then gets persuaded to leave by the tribe of Dan.  Another levite gets his concubine raped, and starts a civil war after chopping her up and sending her to the 12 tribes of Israel.  To end the civil war, a village gets massacred so the tribe of Benjamin can have wives.  Quite messed up stuff. 

2 things to glean: First, if we are never wrong, we may not be following God.  These people did messed up things because they did what was right in their own sight.  Any one of us can mess up, especially if we are always right.

Second, God still loves us.  We don't hear about impending doom here like we do in the prophets.  God was patient with Israel, and He'll be patient with us, also.