The Boss'

Around every corner in the text there is something profound, interesting, or odd.

1 Samuel 11 opens with one of the bad guys, Nahash, an Ammonite, besieging the town of Jabesh Gilead. So the men of the town say, “Hey, make a treaty with us, and we’ll serve you.” So Nahash says, “Sure, I’ll make a treaty with you and let you live, but first, we’re gonna need to gouge out your right eye.” The men of Jabesh, understandably, aren’t thrilled with these terms. They’d rather keep both their eyeballs, thank you very much. They ask Nahash for seven days to think it over, and to see if they can find some help. Nahash, for some reason, agrees to this. I’m not sure why, when you have your enemy on the ropes, you’d let them run home and get their big brother to come and bail them out. It’s like the part of the movie where the bad guy goes on and on giving a speech about world domination, while the good guy is slowly picking his hand cuffs with a hair pin. You can see where it’s going. The men of Jabesh find rescue in Saul, the newly crowned king of Israel. He’s not happy when he hears about the terms of the treaty, so he cuts up his oxen – poor oxen – and mails a piece of them to every corner of the kingdom. Just as a way of saying, ya know, don’t mess with us. All the Israelites turn out to fight the Ammonites, but they’re sneaky about it. They send messengers to Jabesh Gilead to tell the men that by tomorrow, they’ll be delivered. The men of Gilead, in turn, go to Nahash, and lie. They say, “Yeah, we’ll come by tomorrow and surrender, then you can do the eye gouging thing to us, or whatever else you want.” (Did they keep the eyeballs? Or just pitch them all in a big bucket or something? I’m just saying, that’d be a ton of eyeballs.)

Imagine Nahash’s surprise when the whole Israelite army shows up. I can just see him leaning against the fence after school with his eye gouger, all cocky, smiling, waiting for the skinny geek to show up, and then the look of terror when the older brother who’s been locked away at reformed school shows up to kick his a$$.

I’m not sure what lessons can be drawn from 1 Samuel 11. I guess a polite way of describing the trickery that goes on at the end would be to call it shrewdness. Yeah, I like shrewdness better than liar. Nowhere does it say that God sanctions the behavior, but it does say that “the spirit of God came upon him (Saul) in power.” That’s how he was able to do what he did. The eye gouging bit, or course, does bring to mind Mark 9:4, where we’re told it would better to enter the kingdom of heaven with one eye, than to be cast into hell with two. So there’s definitely a lesson there somewhere. Any ideas?

Endlessly fascinating, to say the least.

The Dream Giver by Bruce H. Wilkinson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was a fun and interesting little book to read. It’s a quick read…easily read in one or two sittings. As the description says, it’s a modern day parable, where the main character, Ordinary, leaves the Land of Familiar to pursue his dream, with the help of the Dream Giver (God). It’s a unique way to give a pep talk about following your dreams. I also feel like it would be a good book to hand to someone who’s questioning the particular path that they’re on. View all my reviews >>

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering by David Gregory

My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this little book. Easy to read in a couple of sittings. The author uses a dinner between a skeptic and Jesus himself to lay out the case for faith. It’s a clever device and really well done. View all my reviews >>

One of the things that we’ve put in place this year is an incentive to encourage our older kids to read their Bible every day. We told them that we would give them $100 on January 1, 2011, if they each read their Bible every day between now and then. For each day that they skip, we’ll deduct $10. Of course, we couldn’t very well expect them to commit to this plan if Lindy and I weren’t equally committed to it. For my own reading, I thought I’d pick up in a section of the Bible that I’ve never read, the book of First Kings.

Gotta love how 1 Kings starts out…here’s my summary description of chapter 1.

David is really old, and he’s really cold. They put on all his pajama’s, but he’s still cold. What do his advisors do? Do they say, “Let’s heat up some potatoes and put them at the bottom of the bed”, or “Maybe one of the engineers can figure out a way to bump it up a few degrees in the royal palace.” No. Their plan is this: “Let’s search for the hottest virgin in the whole kingdom, and have her come into the palace and lay in his lap. That’ll get the old blood flowin’!” Brilliant plan! Give that staff a raise!

Now, apparently it wasn’t a sexual thing, because it says that the king did not “know” her, but it is an interesting way to start the book of 1 Kings. Oh, and the Bible is silent on whether or not the plan actually worked to warm up the old king. Apparently that detail is not important to the writer.

Ben and Emma both started their reading in Genesis. We’ll see what they say when they get to the first chapter of First Kings.

Let’s crank up the trusty ole’ time machine and take a peek back at the last decade, shall we?

2000 An exciting year to be sure! While on vacation in Michigan, Lindy went into labor prematurely. The fine folks at Spectrum Health managed to postpone the delivery for two weeks, so I had plenty of time to get to Michigan from Colorado. In June, Benny is born…10 weeks early, but otherwise in fine condition. He stayed in the hospital for a few weeks, but the folks at Spectrum got him off to a great start. In January, I was let go from AdvanceWare and started working for PeakOne in Littleton, Colorado, creating installation packages for their software. AdvanceWare and PeakOne mark my first pure programming jobs. I leave the dream of working as an industrial designer behind me. However, my training as an industrial designer makes me incredibly handy around the house.

2001 In April of 2001, we made the move from Denver, Colorado, to Holland, Michigan. It was hard to leave so many great friends behind in Denver, but we felt like all signs were pointing us toward West Michigan as home base, and we have not regretted the decision. We have, however, missed the abundant sunshine of Colorado. Makes me tear up a little bit just to think about it.

2002 We added a dog to our family. Woody the boxer came to live with us on Father’s day weekend. He has been the bane of my existence ever since. Lindy became licensed to provide daycare in our home. We soon had a house full of other people’s kids, and we used her income to pay off an auto loan, among other things.

2003 Emma turned 5 and learned to ride a two wheeler on the same day. Emma goes to preschool, and we begin to toy with the idea of home schooling. We make the transition to digital photography, and have probably taken 10,000+ photos in the last six years, with one major loss of data. The summer of 2008 is gone forever.

2004 In July, Grace is born! It’s hard to believe that four years passed between Ben and Grace being born. The years of only having two kids are such a distant memory at this point. A miscarriage or two in the intervening years is to blame for the 4 year gap. We officially keep Emma home and begin our home schooling odyssey.

2005 I begin recording all of our adventures on this very blog, thebossfamily.com. Been doing it ever since.

2006 In May, Anna is born! In June, just before he turned six, Ben was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. His diagnosis rocks us back on our heels a bit, but we continue to fight the good fight. Since June of ‘06, Ben has poked his fingers to check his blood glucose level approximately 6,000 times. It hurts every time. In October, we took a family vacation to Colorado. Ben begins his more formal home education, and it seems a good fit for him as well.

2007 In May, we move to an old farm house in Bentheim from our suburban house in Holland. In October, Jack Allen is born! We fully embrace the rural/homeschooling lifestyle, and we don’t look back.

2008 We settle in at our new house, while the economy begins to completely unwind. Once again, we’ve bought a house and prices immediately begin to fall.

2009 In March, the company I work for gave us every other Friday off…Yay! Except that our pay was also cut by 10%. Boo! In April, Will Daniel is born! Also in April, we got 13 chickens and two pigs for our little farm. We take a shot at our first garden. We learn a lot. In July, our whole family stood in stunned silence as the butcher came in and put an end to our two pigs, right there on our lawn in front of God and everybody. They now reside in our freezer.

What jumps out at me when examining the above list, is the fact that we added five kids to our family in the past 10 years. I can also see that for Lindy and me, our parenting and family philosophies have changed a lot. We feel like we’ve really turned our hearts toward home and tried to resist a lot of what the world tells us is worthwhile.

It’s hard to imagine what the next 10 years will bring. In a decade, I’ll have a 21 year old daughter! Yikes! I should probably start saving for the wedding.