The Unknown Soldier of God

May 31, 2009

Today's Reading: 1 Kings 13-14 and 2 Corinthians 4

I never did understand this story between Jeroboam and this mysterious man of God that the bible does not name. He tells King Jeroboam that Josiah will come to destroy all the priests of the high places. By the way, that actually happened.

To confirm that this was going to happen in the future, there is something that occurs in the present. The altar that Jeroboam was worshipping at splits open spontaneously. Then Jeroboam’s hand just up and shrivels up. The king prays for healing on his arm, but I don’t think he prays for deliverance for the things to come.

Maybe that’s why the king invited this prophet to dinner. I’m not certain why God did not want this prophet to accept a gift from the king, or anyone else for that matter. And some guy comes to this prophet later and says: “hey guess what? I am a prophet too, and God told me to take you out”.

And so, God took out the prophet. Really sad. I mean, how was this prophet to know that this man was lying? Of course, I always feel sorry for people in the Bible that die stupidly. Okay, I suppose the prophet sort of brought it on himself, but what is the point of this story?

I mean, I feel the main “meat” of this story is the meeting between Jeroboam and the prophet, and then it should just go on to something else. I mean, if the Bible was a novel, that’s how I would write it. As it is, the darn story goes to this prophet that doesn’t have a name, to meet up with a guy who doesn’t have a name. The story just gets a little boring compared to the action that happens afterward. By the way, Jeroboam does not listen to the prophet, apparently.

Of course, I didn’t write the Bible, and real life doesn’t play like book. It plays like an independent film that is really boring and is so lifelike that you realize that you could have not wasted two hours of your life watching a film, and could have just lived life for that kind of inaction you just observed.

Of course, life is not directionless. Our life seems like one city street, but we don’t realize without looking from a overhead that we are part of a huge grid. It would be stupid of us to assume that we know our place in this world, because until our life is done, we don’t know our life’s work.