Yet another piece of comfort-giving camping gear.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,and he delivers them.Psalms 34:7 - A Psalm of David. when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.
David feigns insanity but Saul truly is insane as tomorrow's reading will demonstrate. It's interesting that what man perceives as insanity is what saves David. Isn't that still true? What man generally thinks as insane or defying sense is what saves us?
Ok, so I begin today with a camping quote (well, I look at it as a camping quote). And I know my thoughts will be esoteric (You're talking camping? Not, David and the merry band of disenfranchised followers that join him at the cave? You're talking camping instead because of one word? Yeah, I am.). I'm talking camping. That's where my thoughts are directed in today's reading. I hope you have your own thoughts when you read these scriptures. And they very well and most probably will be different then mine and that's okay. Because that's what I think the real power of scripture is - not that it says the same thing to all of us but that it speaks in its own way to each of us.
This is not to deny there are Universal Truths. There are. It's to acknowledge that the word of God is not a book and a text like any other text or history or story. The word is alive. God speaks through it to us. And I believe He may speak something different through His word to us in this day then they understood it in the original time in which it was written. Because God is still speaking through His word to us. That's why I believe to know the meaning of scripture it is better to know God than it is to know Hebrew or Greek.
And so today's reading spoke to me about the Truths found in camping when he writes in the Psalms: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them." David is outside of his comfort zone, having to feign insanity and forced to camp out in a cave. And when that happens, when you're forced (and it usually requires force) out of your comfort zone, you realize what little control you have in life and you look to a higher being and power.
The closest most of us allow ourselves to get outside of our comfort zone is when we go camping. We subject ourselves to forces bigger than ourselves when we load up to go camping. Yes, we do our best to subdue nature and make ourselves more comfortable in nature by dragging with us a car full of tents and sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses and heaters and lanterns and stoves and dutch ovens and water jugs and tables and chairs and wood and matches and on and on it goes. But still, in some small way, we are still a bit more at the mercy of elements in nature that we cannot control. And we find our place in the universe and our need for something greater.
We call it roughing it. But really the rough in it is knocking off the rough edges in us.
Lord knows.
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