5 7 03

6:30a

I did do Bible study yesterday, but I wasn�t home when I did it� I read through Micah 2.

Luke 16

Verses 1 through 15 are a parable about the shrewd manager. In my opinion the word �shrewd� here actually means �dishonest�. The story tells of this manager being called in to his boss�s office and being told that because he was dishonest, he was going to be fired. Before he left, though, that manager called in a few people with big accounts� big debts to the boss. The manager then told them to doctor their bills so they owed less.

The premise is that one can buy friendships� loyalty. Yet, Jesus says that if you can�t properly manage someone else�s stuff, you�re not going to be able to manage your own either.

In verse 13 He says that you can�t serve both God and money. But what does that really mean? To me, it�s talking about focus. A �where�s your head� kind of thing. To me, this means that I need to figure out which is more important, the �almighty dollar�, as Extreme says it, or God.

This harkens back to my comments about what god you serve/focus on. I believe that this is God telling me that I have to focus on Him, that He is my provider, not my boss. (meaning, the boss isn�t the provider) This means that God is the one who answers my every need. He is the one who supplies money, fun, friends, shelter, compassion, food, understanding, wisdom� all of it comes from God, not friends, family and employers.

God may use friends, family and employers as the avenues by which I receive His gifts, but they are His gifts.

Then, yet again, I receive another info-nugget about the discussion Bioux and I had a while back about the Law being done away/nailed to the cross. Verses 16 and 17 talk about this specifically.

16 The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the Kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.
17 It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

To me, this means that the Law is still good, that I am still to observe it. Not just the Big Ten, but the whole law. I am not free of confusion, however. In verse 18 Jesus tells me that divorce is still wrong� that someone who divorces his wife and marries someone else is committing adultery, likewise someone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. I don�t like the way that sounds, as I�m not all that keen on being an adulteress.

I ask God if I was an adulteress for marrying Duncan, though he�d been married before and I get a �no�. Then I ask if I would be committing adultery, or making someone else commit adultery by getting remarried. Again I get a �no�. But I don�t know how that fits in with the Law. I wanted out of the marriage to Duncan. I was suffocating, dying.

I truly believe, with all my heart, that I got permission from God to leave that marriage. And when I tried, with all my heart and soul to make it work� when I bit back my own desire and put everything I had into reconciling� Duncan chose to go his own way.

Still, I wonder if I should have stayed married to him anyway. I wonder, sometimes, if I should have just bit the bullet, so to speak, and stayed married. I just don�t know for sure.

Don�t get me wrong, here, I don�t regret the divorce at all. I don�t regret the time I spent with him and I don�t, under any circumstances, regret the four and a half years since our divorce was finalized. I have learned much about myself, gotten so much closer to God and Jesus and have really improved so dramatically that I feel as if I were a completely different person.

But in the back of my mind, I wonder if getting married again will mean I�m committing adultery. I know that the Old Testament says that God will provide husbands for the young widows, but I don�t consider myself a widow.

Mom considers me a �spiritual widow�. She is of the opinion that since Duncan�s choices removed me from his life, because he chose to break the marriage vows and I didn�t, that I am not bound by the divorce-equals-adultery thing. But I just am not sure. Didn�t I make choices too? Wasn�t it my decision to get divorced in the first place? And after the attempt at reconciliation, wasn�t it me who filed for divorce?

*shrugs* I suppose I don�t have to know the answers to these questions just yet. When God presents me with a gift, I will accept it. When He guides me to a husband, I will accept him. Until then, I don�t need to worry about this. God will reveal to me what I need to know, when I need to know it.