🦁 Epiphany 5-5
Readings: Psalm 102:12-28; 2 Kings 4:8-17, 32-37; Acts 14:1-7.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Good morning. My name is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 102, verses 12 to 28, second Kings Chapter four, verses 8 to 17 and Acts 14 verses 1 to 7. In our Psalm today, we have more talking about the praise and power of the Lord and how he is is omnipotent and goes through and lists all these different things in here that God can do and has done and is able to do, and making sure in the final version of verse 28, the children, your servant shall dwell, secure, their offspring shall be established before you, that God takes care of us in second kings in our reading today. We have another immaculate conception story, if you will. So remember going back. So we have the angel Lord appeared to Abraham, who had no issue, no son, no children, and they were hundred years old. And they told you all this time, Sarah will bear you a child. There, of course, overheard that the turn she's kind of laughing about, Right? I'm a little old for that. It happened. They had children, and this was the beginning of the nation of Israel. God made a covenant with Abraham. It is old age. They had children. So here, fast forward a few years. And now we have Alicia, one of the prophets with the human right woman. And that's Eshu and a mighty shoe shining light. And it's in the country of Unum. There was a wealthy one. And whenever Elijah would pass through the Y, she would pass through there. She invited her. Give him something. Well, if only one. It made a little room for him on the roof and in place. He could build a bed. A table chair took care of him. And one day he came in and he said, you know, was there something do for you? There's some way I can help you. And, you know, for all you've done for me and, you know, we have a word spoken on behalf of the king or commander of the Army or send me a favor I can get for you. And she's now I live among my own and women are my own people.
And what can be done for you is as well. She has no son and her husband is old. So Elijah says, Call her. And she comes over and he says, At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace the son. And she's like, Well, wait. And don't, you know, don't lie, you know, Oh, man of God, do not lie. Your servant.
You. That's I am too old. Well, guess what? She conceived and bore a son about that time that Elijah had said. When Elijah kind of jumps real quick with Elijah, she came back to visit and found the child lying dead in his bed. So he went in. He shut the door, and he performed this miracle through God and raised the child from the dead and says, Pick up your son. And she came from his feet and she picked up her son and went out. And there's, you know, a parallel there with Abraham and Sarah. And it's another thing if God wants something done and there's a reason and God has his reasons, it will it will happen and it will be done. Nothing is beyond the power of God, even burying children in old age, if that is what the God has in store for you.
So in our reading acts, we have Paul and Barnabas. So will the Apostle Paul, Will Barnabas will lesser know what Barnabas was, was Paul's go to guy. That was his right hand man, his battle buddy. They went out together. So they're in a place called Iconium and they go into the Jewish synagogue and they it says here in the first verse and spoke in such a way with a great number of both the Jews and Greeks believed.
But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds. So they're dealing with this going through, and they kept bearing witness. They were true to God. The city was divided, some say with the Jews, some say with the apostles. An attempt was made by both the Jews, Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and stoning them. So they were trying to kill them again. And they learned of this and they fled to Lystra l.y Torah and de rb cities like Konya and the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel. This is one of the times where Paul is out doing his ministry. And again, you know, and we've all experienced this, you have people that believe what someone is saying. People don't believe kind of like what's going on right now. But we have sides. Everybody picks a side and then it kind of gets really, really ugly, really, really fast. And now, you know, they're going to be riled up against the point where they gave a public execution of stoning. And so Paul and Barnabas are out of there. They take off and head to other places. But they're still continue to preach the gospel of the Lord and what Jesus did and what it means, the sacrifice, and that God's love is unending. It is for everyone and just keeps keeps moving forward with doing the things that God wants them to do. So that's something for us that we can look at when when things get tight, when things get tough. Okay, it's time to we call it tactical retreat. Change your plans, but continue on and continue to be faithful with God and faithful to God and faithful for God and go out and continue to do those good things.
Move forward. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do that every day. Keep that in your practice. If someone doesn't want to be loved, then that's fine. We can go somewhere else. There are plenty of people who are out there thirsting for the love of God and who need it in their lives because they need to know that they're forgiven because they think they can't be because of the things that they've done. They're so horrible and so bad that God can't forgive them or they can't be forgiven. And we need to let them know God forgives everyone for everything. Amen.
