Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

Walk in the name of your god?  Sounds kind of quaint and even old school!  But come on now, who really does that anymore?     According to the Word of God, we all do: “For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.”   (Micah 4:5) Could this be referring to a protest march?  Probably not!  But, in an effort to get to the bottom of this, I’ll try the journalistic questions of who, what, when, where, and why?  The “who” is somewhat uncertain.  Some translators use the word nations.  Other translators use the word people.  It also could refer to individuals.  But it does say “all”, as in everyone!  Whether we know it or not, believe it or not, acknowledge it or not, we all walk in the name of something and that something often becomes our god. The “what” is significant.  When we walk in the name of something, it usually means we identify with that something.  Furthermore, our values typically align wit

Don’t take kindly to idols! We’re not talking American Idol here, you know the talent contest on TV.  We’re talking an idol that is an image or representation of a god. And we’re also not talking some cute little touristy thing you buy in an open air market that is a caricature of some god of folklore origins.  We’re talking an idol that has grabbed and imprisoned your heart! Maybe we should see it from God’s perspective:  “…they rejected my rules and did not walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.  (Ez 20:16) That classic definition of an idol definitely fits here, that is, an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.  Instead of worshipping the one true God, they rejected Him and they went after their idols. But that’s not even the worst of it.  Earlier in Ezekiel, God said this:  “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face

It is an often quoted line and for lots of good reasons.  Among other things, it wonderfully exudes hope!  Just let the words fall on you like gentle rain:  “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” This line in Ecclesiastes 3:11 points to God’s orchestration of human events in their most appropriate time and place.  In the book of Acts, we find additional descriptions of how He orchestrates human events:  “From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”  (Acts 17:26) Going back to Ecclesiastes, there is a crucial thought in the remainder of the verse that is often glossed over:  “He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” And going back to Acts, we get an additional look at God’s purpose in orchestrating human events:  “ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him

A man of extraordinary wisdom once wrote:  “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”  (Prov 21:2) From what I’ve read, our physical eyes in the above verse refer to one’s intellectual point of view.  The reference to the heart is used to identify where our thoughts and motives come from.  The verse then communicates that it is so very easy to rationalize one’s point of view and think we are right but the Lord knows that is really going on. Not only can we rationalize our point of view but we can also be so very easily deceived:  “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death” (Prov 14:12).  This proverb points to the fact that there is a pathway that can seem straight and easy to travel but it can also lead to destruction.  Some think that the road that seems right in this proverb actually represents wickedness that is disguised as good. Those two verses, written several thousand years ago, are still s