Sometimes I forget that none of Scripture is there incidentally nor accidentally. God gave us His Word and His words – there is divine intentionality behind the granting of the bible to us. This week I have been strangely captivated by a passage of Scripture that I have always found a little odd. It began when I first read it in the King James translation nearly twenty years ago. Here is what is written:
“Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done many acts; he slew two lionlike men of Moab: also he went down and slew a lion in a pit in a snowy day. And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high; and in the Egyptian’s hand was a spear like a weaver’s beam; and he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and slew him with his own spear.” – 1 Chronicles 11:22-23 {KJV}
Benaiah was one tough hombre. He was well known for his mighty deeds among his peers. Three examples of those deeds are listed above for us: 1) he killed a pair of Moabite heroes who were fierce and perceived as being lion-like warriors 2) he also put a 7 1/2 feet tall Egyptian in the grave – and used the fellow’s own sword to accomplish it 3) the most poetic of the three examples involves Benaiah chasing a lion down, cornering the beast in a quarry and silencing the big cat’s last meow.
Benaiah – I think I’m going to call him Big Bad Benny from now on.
In the years since I first read this account of Big Bad Benny I have pondered what to apply from his life. I am not a soldier. There are no lions in metro-Atlanta for me to kill. I do live about a mile from a local rock quarry but it almost never snows here so I’m thinking that scenario will not be repeated in my own life. Additonally, I personally know only two Egyptians and both of them are around 5 ½ feet tall and unworthy of any attempt on my part to slay them with their own spears – I rather like them both. Benny and I are from different worlds so what can I glean from his oh-so-very-different life? I think I saw a little something this week that finds me just at the moment I needed it. Here it is:
Big Bad Benny’s life is recorded in Scripture with a whole bunch of Who & What but zero How. Go back and read the verses and see for yourself. We are told Who – Benny, two Moabite warriors, a hulking Egyptian and lion that met with an unlikely ending. We are told What – Benny kills everyone. Yet there is not an inkling of How he pulled off these heroic acts. There is no mention of the process by which he defeated the two dudes from Moab. No explanation is given of how a small-statured Hebrew ended up with a giant Egyptian warrior’s spear and put the man in the grave. And then there is this crazy scene with the lion. Killing a lion is amazing on its own. Doing this great feat in a pit where you cannot get out is all the more astounding. Then, to top it all off, Big Bad Benny killed the big cat with snow under his sandals – this would have been a challenge to maintain balance for standing much less for the kill. My thirst for logic and understanding wants a credible, objective and sensible explanation of how these feats all played out. I want to make sense of it all so I think, “Okay, God, thanks for the cool stories about Benny – now clue us in to how this all played out so we can explain all of it.”
God’s silence says this to me: “Jeffrey, how about you focus on the Who and the What in your life and let Me take care of the How. You are not qualified for the How. That is My work alone. Master the Who and the What. I am really skilled at the How and do not need your help… and you do not need the distraction. I will handle all of the How’s – sound good, son?”
You and I are given some responsibilities in life. At times the odds are stacked very high against us and we are shivering in the cold shadow of just how in the world things are going to turn out. God has never promised to make sense to us – in fact He indicated that there would be times when He would make no sense at all to us (Isaiah 55:8-11). What He does in your life does not always carry a little white tag attached which gives you a credible explanation of the full extent of what is happening. It sometimes appalls us but God is not obligated to explain the How to us. He gives us plenty to work on with the Who’s and the What’s of our lives. So Big Bad Benny lived a heroic life and nobody tells us exactly how these unlikely events became his reality. We just know that Benny kept winning. I am guessing that he developed the ability to not ask God How but instead focused on hearing Who and What.
I am going to try to do that today. I hope you will too. Maybe we will experience a little more of what Benny got to see.
Man alive, I love this! I like his new name. I knew a laypastor who simply could not pronounce the Old Testament names….so he called them all Bob. His point was similar to yours…God was the one to remember.
Praying last night, I was baffled at “how” I have been able to report for duty the last three months. I do not have the sturdy frame I pretended to have in my 20s. Paperwork calls for a nap most days. Yet I have successfully shown up for a move, planned my wedding, married the man, and supported him through major surgery. “I” should be wrecked. I am not.
Like you, the answer I found was simply…”God”. What I moved through was nothing compared to pressing events of others, but I felt the threat. God showed Himself in my events as he does in everyone’s….if we let Him.
God is in control! We get our strength from Him. Our job is to keep our focus on Him! Thank you for the great scripture. So good to have you back!
So, Jeff…just how did you arrive at your conclusion about the “how”? :). Your break from blogging paid off…this is one of your best! Don’t ask me how I know though.
Welcome back Bro. Jeff!! I so enjoy reading your blogs. There are some things in my life that I can not make sense of and while here, I think I want to ask God about it when I get to Heaven, but I have a feeling that it really won’t matter then.
I also want to thank you for the way you read the Bible aloud. I have never heard anyone read it the way you do. It does not sound like you are reading it, but as someone speaking the words in conversation. I like that.