Apr 29 Day 79 1 Kings 1:1-5

Be strong, be courageous, and keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.

David is dying, and the battles are already beginning between his heirs; who will become David’s successor? One conniving son self-proclaims himself as the next king, while David is still alive. Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba appeals to David that Solomon was supposed to be successor. So David makes it so, much to the dismay of Adonijah, the self-proclaimed heir. The battle lines are drawn, and there is death and destruction to Adonijah and his followers. But in the end, Solomon, wise and rich, rules. As David’s death draws near, he commends Solomon to be strong, courageous, and walk in God’s ways.

The accompanying writing for this reading is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 20th century pastor and martyr killed by the Nazis. As he was in a concentration camp, he wrote “[W]e should no longer equate human ways and aims with divine ways and aims. God is beyond all human plans and actions.” Both David and Bonhoeffer were facing their certain deaths. And yet both showed an incredible faith in God and God’s ways.

We all have struggles and challenges, and gratefully few of us are facing death at a concentration camp. And still it’s when our life is challenged that our faith falters. How could God let this happen, or not solve that problem? Or worse, our faith is obliterated by the concerns and values of the world. Clearly there is no God, if our world looks like this.

It’s amazing and inspiring to me that Bonhoeffer was so faithful as to suggest that we should not look at God’s ways from the perspective of human ways. God’s aims are not the same as human aims. Knowing where he was, and what German children of God had done to Jews, and pacifists, and homosexuals and people from other countries, and knowing what the German children of God were likely to do to him, Bonhoeffer was able to still put his faith in God’s aims and ways. A less faithful man could have easily refuted and turned away from God, a God who watched the atrocities unfold.

But today, I can absolutely understand Bonhoeffer’s stubborn commitment to God’s ways. Human ways are so arbitrary and mean, what would Bonhoeffer had left if he’d put his hope in humanity, if he didn’t have a faith in God and God’s mysterious aims?

Yesterday, my loved one returned to Portland to live in a tent in our front yard, after over a week being homeless, getting stitches for a cut, getting arrested for burglary, and shoplifting to survive. When they returned and set up the tent, it was not long after they fell soundly asleep, visibly and vocally exhausted. The night air was punctuated with bits of loud conversations with no one, and coughing from the cold air and smoking. To be clear, there was no visible gratitude for my husband’s successful extraction mission. No apparent change in the deep held belief that we are abusers. That’s why they’re living in a tent, because they cannot live in our house safely. They must have been so miserable before, to have made the choice to return.

Their illness keeps them from probably fully understanding the seriousness and risks of the past two weeks. But my husband and I made up for that, worrying for all three of us. I did not face anything similar to my loved one, or to Bonhoeffer. And I retain a dogged faith in God’s ways. It’s not that I think God will magically wipe everything away, but honestly, what would I have had left, if I’d walked away from God? My husband does not share my faith, but I think in some little way, he was able to hold on to a hope in an overall good plan, in part because of my outlook.

This morning, I’m thinking about God’s grace that allowed me to hold on to faith in the face of a multitude of human aims and ways that could have easily overwhelmed that faith. God’s grace provides the lifeline onto which we can hold, when the storm seems like it could sweep us out to sea.