Genesis 30:1-31:16 ~ Matthew 10:1-23 ~ Psalm 12:1-8 ~ Proverbs 3:13-15
Today is the 14th of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today. It is a pleasure and a joy every day, but today I’m a bit flat footed, I think. So today is a little bit of a bittersweet day for me. A few hours ago my mom passed away. For a long time she was one of us. She listened every day and I imagine I’ll have a few things to say at the end, but today I read in her honor because there certainly would be no Daily Audio Bible had it not been for my mother. So we begin, Genesis chapter 30, verse 1 through 31 verse 16 and we’re reading from the Common English Bible this week.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for these first two weeks, and as we look back, we’ve only begun the journey, but we have journeyed far and you have spoken true. So we welcome that. We invite that. We need that every day of this year and we thank you for it in advance. Father, at the beginning of this year we ask for wisdom, the kind of wisdom spoken of in the Proverbs, the kind of wisdom that transforms the way we do everything, that gives us insight into all aspects of our lives, relationally, financially, vocationally, physically. We’re beginning to understand that this is a collaboration and wisdom is something that we have to collaborate in. We can have all of the knowledge of wisdom and never put it into our lives and nothing changes except for that we know some things we didn’t know but we don’t do the things that we now know. Give us the wisdom of your Holy Spirit, the wisdom of your kingdom. Show us we fit into that story and how we are to conduct ourselves with wisdom in everything. So often we feel like wisdom is just to respect and honor you and we don’t have any role to play and then we’re upset that you don’t do the things we ask you to do, when the Proverbs simply tell us that yes, this fear and awe and reverence for you is important, vitally important, is the cornerstone, but it is the beginning of wisdom. So we want to move past the beginning of wisdom and find ourselves surrounded and blanketed by it in every area of our lives. This will give us margin in our lives, the space to see things as they really are and not to have to react in every area of our lives all the time, moving from chaos to crisis. Come Holy Spirit, wash over us and implant wisdom in our lives. We respond to that by changing the way that we do things, by repenting. And we do, because even in the first two weeks we can see so much has already begun to take shape inside of our hearts. We see so many of the ways that we’ve been thrashing around, so many of the ways that we’ve frankly just been looking at things incorrectly. Help us to reframe what we are looking at and see things as they really are. We ask this in your name, Jesus, your strong and powerful name. Amen.
Announcements
Okay, so I mentioned at the beginning that my mom passed away a little bit ago so it has been an exhausting few days. I think I have a lot to say about all this and I think I want to share maybe the story, but I don’t think I can right now. I don’t think I can get it all out. I don’t even think I have all together. I know I don’t have it all together. But I didn’t want to keep it from you and I wanted to honor her in some way today because she was honorable. She fought to stay as long as she could and way past when she should have. She was a fighter, without a doubt. So I didn’t want to just let it go by. I know in maybe a week or something I’ll be in a better place to just share some thoughts on loss and hope because although this has knocked me on my back right now, I am not hopeless. None of us are hopeless. We have every reason to hope. Sometimes that is all we have but sometimes it is enough and sometimes it is all we need.
I know absolutely for certain that my mom had hope. Even when she could no longer say Jesus’ name, she still tried. She couldn’t form her words and say Jesus. She would just say Sheshus, Sheshus over and over. So I know, I know where my mom is, but oh, oh how I long for the day when there are no more goodbyes, which I think is what keeps me on this narrow path that we are all walking together, not only in the Bible, but in our lives.
I know those of you who have lost someone you love, you know what I’m talking about. Having lost both of my parents, which is just so weird to even say, it’s so fresh, I am not without hope and I long for the restoration of all things when all is made new again because what else is there? Loss, death, they have a way of making us come to face exactly what we do believe and I do believe. I do believe my mom is with Jesus. I’m sure there is a whole story that I would like to tell, but not now.
I’m sure this announcement will fill my inbox and mailbox and I thank you, even in advance, because there will be no way I can respond to everybody. Mom just, she wanted it to be simple. She wanted it to be private, and that is exactly what it will be, but the one thing that I can ask for and know I will get, because it is one of the distinctive things that we do so well as a community is I just ask for your prayers. It is a pretty tough pill to swallow even though I feel like I’ve been chewing on this pill for a while. Thank you for your prayers for wisdom and hope and comfort.
I loved my mom. I loved her dearly. I’m not really sure speaking of her in past tense is even right. I love her still. I love my mom dearly. So I share this with you because I love you too. I would be feeling quite a bit more unmoored if I didn’t know that we were in this together. So my mom has passed, but in reality what she has done is step into wholeness. She was very broken. That is over. There is no sting in that. So I thank you for your prayers.
I love you, mom. And with all the gratitude in my heart, I am so thankful for who you are and I will see you again, but not yet, not yet.
Song played today on the Daily Audio Bible: When You Come Around – Richard Page.