Speaking Back to God by Being Thankful

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6

Kari Farnell

We all know that God can speak through Scriptures as we read them, but God speaks through Scriptures we have memorized as well. God wants us to speak back to him through prayer and thanksgiving. I am going to relate a story that shows this idea.

On a bright May morning in 1993, I underwent a scheduled c-section to deliver my 10lb. 14 oz. baby boy. I am a Type 1 diabetic and this was my second baby. Having given birth to his sister through an emergency c-section and with him weighing in at a suspected 8+ lbs at 35 ½ weeks, the doctors had convinced me to undergo another c-section.  Because I had requested to be fully under for the c-section, my husband watched through the surgery door. Time was of the essence because I had been given anesthesia to put me to sleep and the longer it took to get the baby out, the more anesthesia he would have in his system as well. Once the opening was made, the baby ended up being so large that he got stuck coming out. Once he was born, his initial APGAR score was 4; however, his second APGAR reading was 8, so all seemed well.

always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.  Ephesians 5:20

Kari Farnell

At that time (and perhaps still), diabetics were not typically allowed to go past 35-36 weeks before giving birth due to complications that could arise. Earlier in my pregnancy, one of the doctors decided to change my due date and make it a week later than the original date. In my gut, I felt this was an issue, but wasn’t going to doubt the doctor. As it turns out, I was right to have thought it an issue. Shortly after my son’s birth, someone overheard one of the doctors state that my placenta had already started to deteriorate and my son may not have survived another day in the womb.

Again all seemed well despite the prior problems and issues, until his 4^th day. It was on the 4^th day, while still at the hospital, his doctor came in and said, “Well, you must know if I’m here, it’s not good news.” The doctor then began to explain that my son had suddenly become septic and was having difficulty sustaining his breathing. They had tried many things that were not working and they were going to have to fly him to Baltimore. I was devastated, but the first thing to enter my mind was in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

This Scripture, which I had heard many times before, was an immediate thought (almost an audible voice) and a definite word from God. My mind vacillated between this verse, and thinking “this can’t be happening”. I immediately phoned everyone I could think of and got everyone involved in praying. Meanwhile, I sat there THANKING God for the 4 days I had had with my son; for the doctors and nurses; for the situation; and for anything else that came to mind. 

To shorten a long story, I will just say that everything did turn out well. My son came home after 2 weeks in the NICU in Baltimore and has had no related issues since. I thank God for that whole experience. I thank God for friends and family that prayed. I thank God for all of my family that are whole and healthy. I thank God in the bad times as well, because that is what we are commanded to do. It is not easy, but it is important. It helps to take our focus off of what WE can do and put it onto what GOD can do.

God speaks to us in many ways, but sometimes and in some circumstances, he wants us to speak back. He is waiting to hear from us in prayer and through thankfulness for ALL circumstances. Take this Thanksgiving holiday to speak back to God and thank HIm

for ALL things!  

Nick Dykeman

God Speaks Through an Assassin

Kari Farnell

Have you ever noticed how many seemingly inconsequential verses or phrases are found in the Bible? You may read a passage and think, "why in the world is that in here", or even "why is that important?" Judges, chapter 3 contains a couples of these examples. Let's look at some of the background leading up to these seemingly unimportant verses.

The Israelites have recently come into their Promised Land and have defeated some of the

neighboring tribes, but there are still a few remaining. Joshua, who had become their leader

after the death of Moses, has now also died. Thus begins a terrible pattern that lasts for

hundreds of years. Evidently, the Israelites were not smart enough on their own to continue in

the ways of God. Without direct leadership, they begin to worship the false gods of the

neighboring countries and begin to intermarry with their women. God becomes angry with

them because He has brought them all this way, protected and kept them safe, and at the

first opportunity, they throw all of that aside and begin to turn their backs on HIm.

Israel is taken over by the king of Mesopotamia and the Israelites realize their sinful ways
and cry out to God for help. God raises up the first of the Biblical judges, Othniel, to come
to their rescue. After their rescue, Othniel lived and judged for 40 years until he died. 

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After 40 years of peace and again with no direct leader, the Israelites begin to “do evil in the
sight of the Eternal”. So God again delivers them into the hands of a neighboring country. This
time it is the country of Moab, whose king is Eglon. After being enslaved by Eglon for 18 years,
the Israelites cry out to God for help again. Seems like they have learned their lesson. This time
God raises up Ehud. The Israelites decide that Ehud should take a tribute to Eglon, the king,
and try to convince him to let them go. What is interesting about Ehud is that he is left-handed
and the writer of Judges makes a point in telling us that. To me this seems like one of those
inconsequential phrases. Who cares if he’s left-handed? Why in the world would God point this out? 

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A couple of things come to mind here. First, being left-handed was rare then, just as it is now. But that still doesn’t seem to be enough reason to mention it in the Bible. The second thing to think about is that in those days most people and most warriors were right-handed. Swords were and still are typically carried on the opposite side of your strong hand for easier reach and easier use. Those in charge of security for the king would generally search the LEFT side of people for weapons since most were right-handed. In the case of Ehud, since he was left-handed, he carried his sword on his RIGHT side and therefore, it was not found during the security search. 
Ehud goes in to see King Eglon, whom the Bible describes as “a very fat man”. Again, why
does God care if we know Eglon’s size or body type? Is this another seemingly
inconsequential part of Scripture? Ehud brings the tribute to Eglon and leaves. After he
starts to leave the palace, he goes back and tells the King that he has a secret message
for him. At this point, King Eglon has gone into the “upstairs room”. This is often said to be
where the chamber pot is and where the king might be relieving himself.

Despite that fact, King Eglon is so pleased by the promise of this secret message that he invites Ehud upstairs
alone. After locking the door, Ehud wastes no time in drawing his sword from his RIGHT side
and plunges it into Eglon. We are told that the king is so fat, the sword AND hilt go in and are
surrounded by skin. Ehud may have been the world’s first assassin! He makes his escape
and eventually Eglon’s guards go in and check on him and find him dead. At first glance,
I'm sure they were confused because they likely were not able to see the sword
that killed him. God had delivered Israel once again and they rested from war for 80 years. 

It would be nice to say that the nation of Israel had learned their lesson after this, but this
pattern of falling into sinful ways and being rescued by a judge becomes a vicious cycle
that lasts for hundreds of years before God finally gives them a king to rule them.
Even after that, Israel’s kings did not always do “what was right in the sight of the Lord”.
Eventually, Israel is defeated as a nation and dispersed for good.

There are a couple closing thoughts about this story. The first thing that we can take away
from this passage of Scripture is that ALL of the Bible is there for a reason. We can always
glean things from the verses that seem insignificant. If it’s in the Bible, it’s there for a reason;
we may just need to pray and research to find the meaning.

The second is that God continues to give second chances to the Israelites when they
disobey and fall away from Him. He does the same for us today. God continues to invite
us into His presence and His kingdom and even when we don’t accept that invitation,
He continues to send it back out. There will come a day, though, that the date on the
invitation expires and God won’t have the opportunity to send it back out. We need to
accept God’s invitation now before that expiration date arrives. 

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God Speaks Through Barnabas, but who is he?

Kari Farnell

I have to admit it! I often do not remember sermons much beyond Sunday morning. One exception to this is a sermon given by my father-in-law about 30 years ago. To be honest I don’t remember a lot of it either, but I do remember he talked about Barnabas. I didn’t remember ever hearing much about Barnabas prior to this sermon. You too may have never heard of him. 

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 The first mention of Barnabas is in Acts, chapter 4. I rediscovered him when I recently read through Acts, chapters 3-5. These chapters talk about some of the events surrounding the beginnings of the church, including one of the arrests of Peter and John as they attempted to share the good news of Christ. There is a lot of interesting information in these two chapters, so I encourage you to read them on your own. After healing a man, Peter, John, and the man who was healed, were arrested.  The Sadducees couldn’t decide what should be done with them, but finally released them with the instruction to stop spreading the stories of Jesus. The main reason they released them was because between the time of healing the man and being arrested, Peter and John had convinced more than 5000 people to believe their stories about Jesus. In addition, there was no way to hide the fact that this man who had been crippled for more than 40 years was now healed. With all of that community support for Peter and John, the Jewish leaders were afraid of riots and so they released the men telling them not to share the news of Jesus. Once Peter and John were released they went back to the community of believers who prayed about the situation. The Bible tells us that after the prayer, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began sharing God’s message with even more confidence.

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Acts 4 then goes on to describe this community of believers as being so deeply committed to the cause that they put all of their earthly belongings together in “one pot”, so to speak, and shared what they had with each other. This is where Barnabas comes in. Barnabas is first identified as a Cyprian Levite, a Jewish man (of the priestly order) that had been born in Cyprus. His name was originally Joseph. The writer of Acts tells us that this Cyprian Levite, Joseph, along with others, sold property and put all of the money from the sale into this “pot” to be used by the fellow believers. The apostles recognized the significance of this act and actually nicknamed Joseph as Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement”. Barnabas’ act was an encouragement to others that they could also give what they had to this community of believers. This same Barnabas went on to travel and spread the Gospel with Paul a little later in Acts..

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When I heard my father-in-law’s sermon all those years ago and he talked about Barnabas being an encourager, I knew right then and there that this was my calling...to encourage others. For some time I had wrestled with my spiritual gift(s). I knew that we were each given at least one, but was really unsure of what mine was...until I heard about Barnabas. It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps this was my gift.  In college, I studied Psychology with the idea of helping others, then wanted to try teaching to help others. My gift was really not in teaching or even helping others, but in encouraging. Often we may feel that we have no contributions to the family of God, but know that we can always be an encourager. Encourage others to follow God; encourage them to pray; encourage folks to come to church; encourage friends to read the Bible. If you cannot seem to find any other gift, choose to be a Barnabas!

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