This is going to be a testimony to my growing relationship with one verse in the Bible: Ps. 34:8. God first impressed this verse upon me for a mission trip after my sophomore year of college. My first reaction was “This is a stupid verse for a missions trip.” Proving that God’s thoughts are much higher than my thoughts! I have spent (cough-cough-sputter) years with these sixteen words: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man [or woman] that trusteth in Him,” and I’m pretty sure that it will take as many more years (and maybe even longer) to really “get” them.

(I have to give a big “thank you” to Sam McAllister for the following, and apologies for heisting this from his sermon given on June 17, 2012.)

Psalm 34 bears the heading “A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.” Here’s the story: David has just fled from Saul with the help of Jonathan. On his run he stops by Nob where the priests (whom Saul will later slay) are keeping the sword of Goliath. In a stunningly brainless move, David takes Goliath’s sword and runs to the king of Gath of Philistia, home of the Philistines. Remember them? Goliath–you know, of Gath–was one of their heroes. After Goliath’s death at the hands of a young David, the Israelites had quite a victory. In fact, the Israelites continued to rout the Philistines under the leadership of that same David until throughout the streets of Jerusalem was heard “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands [Philistines].” So there is David standing in Gath before the king of the Philistines (who would really love to see him dead), holding the sword of the Goliath and asking for asylum. When David realizes his colossal stupidity, he pretends to be crazy and the king decides David isn’t worth his time and dismisses him.

Here’s the scene: David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. (I Samuel 21: 10-13)

Maybe you can’t identify with this scenario . . . lucky you. For the rest of us, there is hope. David looks back on this moment in Psalm 34 and testifies to the goodness of God, the protection of God, and the possibility of growing in the fear of God. In short, David can look back on this moment of brainlessness and say “God is good even when I do something dumb. He protects me when I trust in him — even when occasionally my faith is momentarily hijacked by my stupidity. These mental-blips lead me to realize how much more I need to learn about God and his prescription for living a long and happy life.” What a much more positive outcome than wallowing in self-pity!

As always, thanks for listening.

I am single. (And to clarify, I said I wouldn’t talk about marriage. I never said I wouldn’t talk about not being married.)

Let me start by saying that I am content. God has given me a wonderful life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. However, occasionally being single rots.

There is a little sexist in my head that tells me that as a lady I shouldn’t have to take out the trash, worry about the car, fix maladjusted vacuums, kill malicious bugs, balance the budget, or haul heavy boxes from the car. This is not to say that I can’t do these things. I can. Mostly, I just don’t want to. These are the things that my Dad did while I was growing up.

It comes as no surprise these are also the things which make me feel out of control (except for the trash; that’s just nasty, not challenging). I can put gas, coolant, and oil in my car, but speaking to mechanics (those strange men who speak a foreign language and have the magic to make my car go) is a humbling process. I don’t understand a word they say and they treat me like an idiot. Money is math. I hate math. And bugs are just . . . awful. Bugs are my Waterloo.

When I was living in Brooklyn a great, big, nasty, slimy, disgusting slug (Not a bug, I know, but might as well be) crawled into my kitchen. Gross! So being the terribly clever, very rational girl I am, I spent the next — well — however many minutes sobbing and throwing salt at the slug from across the room. Yes, laugh. I laugh now, but it was traumatizing. And that’s how I feel about bugs.

When I was teaching Public Speaking at BJU, one lecture dealt with how our ideas are linked to each other. Ideas aren’t independent. Ideas are networked. For instance, I brush my teeth because when I was little my mother told me that brushing my teach was healthy. I obey my mom because the Bible tells me to. I believe the Bible because once upon a time the Spirit worked in my heart and I trusted Christ to save me. All these ideas are networked. When we got to this lesson I used it to talk about missions. We believe that we ought to be involved in missions because the Bible tells us to, and we think that’s enough; so we fail to explore all the little ideas that might be attached to missions that might work against us. For me, sad to say, it’s bugs (and coffee – imagine the travesty of no coffee?!?). God calling me to a mission field is no big deal. God calling me to a mission field with big bugs — very big, overwhelming, scary problem.

See, I’m single. I don’t have anyone to take care of the bugs. And I really hate bugs — especially big ugly bugs that defy logic (centipedes, spiders, scorpions). I think about missionary women — Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael — and part of myself wants to be like them, but another, very real part, wants to live in a place with very good coffee and very few bugs. It’s cowardly, but there it is.

Of course, it isn’t really isn’t about bugs, cars, or money. It’s about trust. Do I trust God enough to take care of the bugs? to give me enough wisdom to deal with a mechanical beast that makes me feel inadequate? to help me be smart about money? It seems so much easier to trust him with my immortal soul. This is, of course, another curse of materialism. I’ll never see or feel my soul, so entrusting it is only occasionally troubling. But bugs, money, and cars I see and feel them and they are almost always troubling.

So I’m single.

When I’m not struggling with trust — which happens far too infrequently — I realize how blessed I am to be in a position in which I get to see firsthand how God cares for me. He does. It’s not that there will never be bugs, but God is trying to teach me (I’m a pretty sad student) that he will never send any bugs into my life without sending me enough grace and strength to deal with them. Bugs remind me that I need a protector. And I have the best protector in the whole universe.

Don’t know if this makes any sense at all, but thanks for listening.