Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

 Tuesday (September 30) Running in Circles 1 Samuel 9:15-16 Now the day before Saul came, the LORD had revealed to Samuel: “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines.” The sequence of events that must take place precisely in order for the LORD’s prophecy to come true is immeasurable. The implications of such exact knowledge of Saul’s arrival and the corresponding power to ensure that nothing prohibits it creates such an overwhelming and unsolvable riddle to our finite minds that we come out seeming like nothing more than puppets on a string. On the one hand, its clear that we have will power, and we make millions of little choices every day, from whether to take a cold morning shower or a hot one, or whether to eat eggs or a bagel for breakfast, to which shirt to wear, to which road to take to work, to which song or sermon or podca...

 Monday (September 29) God is in This City 1 Samuel 9:5-6 When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us.” But he said to him, “Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man who is held in honor; all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go.” Saul and his companion have come a long way in search of runaway donkeys. They’ve journeyed through Ephraim’s hill country—that’s no walk in the park—but with no sign of the hoofed renegades. Then they’ve journeyed through the land of Shalishah, which I’m sure wasn’t a mere two-mile trek around a park greenway. And they’ve kept on going, following a path that leads them further from home. On to Shaalim, and then to Benjamin, and then eventually finding themselves road-weary in the land of Zuph, till the sight of a new frontier leads Saul to count his ...

 Sabbath Psalm (September 27-28) (From Keith and Kristyn Getty’s hymn, “He Will Hold Me Fast”) When I fear my faith will fail Christ will hold me fast When the tempter would prevail He will hold me fast I could never keep my hold Through life’s fearful path For my love is often cold He must hold me fast Those He saves are His delight Christ will hold me fast Precious in His holy sight He will hold me fast He’ll not let my soul be lost His promises shall last Bought by Him at such a cost He will hold me fast For my life He bled and died Christ will hold me fast Justice has been satisfied He will hold me fast Raised with Him to endless life He will hold me fast Till our faith is turned to sight When He comes at last!

 Friday (September 26) Donkey Days 1 Samuel 9:3-4 Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, “Take one of the young men with you, and arise, go and look for  the donkeys. And he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the  land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then they passed through the land of Benjamin, but did not find them. How many times have you gotten out of bed in the morning, anticipating a day packed full of opportunities, some you’d had on the calendar for a while and were looking forward to, only to cancel all those plans due to a high fever or a flat tire or flooding in your basement or a lost wallet or even that terrible realization as you pull the handle of your car door that you’ve locked your keys in the house? Even the loss of little things can wreak havoc on our well-made plans. There’s a creek called Campbell Creek...

 Thursday (September (25) The Ideal Candidate 1 Samuel 9:1-2 There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, … a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people. Let’s be careful not to read these glowing descriptions of Saul through the lens of the LORD’s later words to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:7, “The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart,” and mistakenly deem these apparent natural giftings as curses. Saul is more handsome and taller than all the other men in his society, which isn’t a bad thing on its face. But because we’re familiar with that word from Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:27, that “God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong,” and because we’re awestruck by the fact that Christ chose an unattractive face and a poor occupation ...

 Wednesday (September (24) And He Shall be Called Immanuel 1 Samuel 8:19-20 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” These people are both right and wrong in their motives here. Right in the sense that their desire for a king to judge them and go out before them and fight their battles is certainly a God-given one, but wrong in the sense that they just want to fit in with all the other nations, when, from the beginning, Almighty God has set them apart. Nevertheless, the human heart wants more than a king in all his regalia to rule with a golden crown and an iron scepter. The sheen of that spectacle will wear off real quick. After a while, Pharaohs claiming to be sons of gods and Caesars burning the world down in their domination and autocrats dropping bombs on their neighbors won’t lead to societal fl...

 Tuesday (September 23) A King Like No Other 1 Samuel 8:10-11,13, 17-18 So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen. … He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. … He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” It behooves linguists and biblical scholars to say with precision whether Samuel’s declaration of “in that day you will cry out because of your king” is an eschatological prophecy of some specific day, or a general principle that covers many eras of failed leadership to come, or both, but the over-arching principle seems like a more practical application to discuss at present. Do you remember what thos...

 Monday (September 22) God’s Rebuttal pt. 2 1 Samuel 8:9 “Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” At times in our lives of faith, trying to spot the shimmering, golden strands of Providence is like trying to find the sunlight in a dense forest during a rainstorm. But other times, Providence shines so effervescently before us, bathing all the crevices of our common lives in radiant glory, that the only way we could miss it is to shut our eyes. That’s how 1 Samuel 8:9 appears to me upon reading it. This Scripture provides us a panorama of Providence, with a view so wide and so full and so high, that parsing out the meaning of each letter is like trying to paint every speck of golden light during a Grand Canyon sunset. When the LORD tells Samuel here, “Obey their voice,” He means in effect, “Give the people what their hearts are pining for—give them a king.” Oh, but this isn’t the heaved sigh of a God...

 Sabbath Psalm (September 20-21) (From Keith and Kristyn Getty’s hymn, “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery) Come, behold the wondrous mystery In the dawning of the King He the theme of Heaven’s praises Robed in frail humanity In our longing, in our darkness Now, the Light of life has come! Look to Christ Who condescended Took on flesh to ransom us! Come, behold the wondrous mystery He, the perfect Son of Man In His living, in His suffering Never trace nor stain of sin See the true and better Adam Come to save the hell-bound man Christ, the great and sure fulfillment Of the law, in Him we stand Come, behold the wondrous mystery Christ, the Lord upon the tree In the stead of ruined sinners Hangs the Lamb in victory See the price of our redemption See the Father’s plan unfold Bringing many sons to glory Grace unmeasured, Love untold Come, behold the wondrous mystery Slain by death, the God of life But no grave could e’er restrain Him Praise the Lord, He is alive! What a foretaste of del...

 Friday (September 19) God’s Rebuttal pt. 1 1 Samuel 8:7-8 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.” I spent a good bit of time yesterday wrestling with the LORD over His reply to Samuel here, asking question like these in my bewilderment: “LORD, I don’t understand why the people are wrong for calling out the wickedness in Samuel’s sons and asking for a different judge in their stead. If the judges in Israel are corrupt, and the people have come to Samuel to protest, why don’t You condemn Samuel’s sons first before condemning the people for wanting a king?” I paced around in the woods for a while, feeling that stinging sense of injustice rising up in my gut, yet, that’s when th...

 Thursday (September 18) A Way Through the Wall 1 Samuel 8:4-6 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. The devil has been given the moniker ‘father of lies’ for a multitude of reasons, but I think his devious use of half-truths as a subterfuge against a saint’s good conscience is the most pernicious form of deception. The way He tugs on our heart strings and covers up gross evils by invoking equity and justice and compassion, shrouding his fangs and claws under the soft wool of meekness is just disgusting. Virtue-following he knows nothing of—in fact he loathes nothing more. But virtue-signaling is his specialty. He whispers little half-truths into our sorrows and questions from day to day, making...

 Wednesday (September 17) A Puzzling Parallel 1 Samuel 8:1-3 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside to gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. Reading slowly and reflectively through the Bible as a 39-year-old, and having been a disciple of Christ for 34 years, is as humiliating a process as it is enlightening. Humiliating in the sense that I continue to encounter conundrums like the one facing us here in 1 Samuel 8:1-3 as if for the very first time, which means that I’ve either been a bad reader or a bad listener or both. I’ve walked away from the chronicles of heroes like Abraham and Moses and Samuel foolishly thinking I’ve got a pretty good grasp on their successes and failures, but I’ve missed crucial addendums and failed to ask difficult questions. But maybe that’s part of the point of prog...

 Tuesday (September 16) A Circuit Preacher of Yore 1 Samuel 7:15-17 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places. Then he would return to Ramah, for his home was there, and there also he judged Israel. And he built there an altar to the LORD. During the year I spent abroad in the small town of Lampeter, Wales, Christian community options were rare. In fact, the two major Welsh revivals of the eighteenth century completely and strangely maneuvered around the rural University town, as if hell’s armies held an unseen fortress there. I found only two active churches in the whole area: one, a small Pentecostal house church, and the other a non-denomination evangelical church that met in a rented warehouse. Two elderly members of the evangelical church, Gareth and Liz, a sweet, faithful couple, owned a small café in town called The Mustard Seed (yr hedyn mwstard), where we’d ha...

 Monday (September 15) The Miracle of the Old Made New 1 Samuel 7:13b-14 And the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. Restored. I want you to meditate on that word for a moment. Ponder its ramifications. Consider that redemption isn’t only a miracle of regeneration but a miracle of restoration. Just as the redeeming heroism of Christ has made heaven eternally better than Eden, for in Eden men did not know sin and thus did not see   Almighty God incarnate into Adam’s flesh and blood, bearing wounds in His hands and feet that contain all our sin and sorrow; so, too, the restoration of wasted years brings a deepened appreciation for the mercy of God. “I will restore the years the locusts have eaten,” proclaimed our LORD in Joel ...

 Sabbath Psalm (September 13-14) (From Matt Redman’s hymn, “Nothing But The Blood”) Your blood speaks a better word Than all the empty claims I’ve heard upon this earth Speaks righteousness for me And stands in my defense Jesus, it’s Your blood! Your cross testifies in grace Tells of the Father’s heart To make a way for us Now boldly we approach Not with earthly confidence It’s only by Your blood! What can wash away our sins? What can make us whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! What can wash us pure as snow? Welcomed as the friends of God? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

 Friday (September 12) Bulletproof 1 Samuel 7:10, 12 As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the LORD thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. … Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us." I drove up from Raleigh, NC to Columbus, OH this weekend to lead music at a conference, and I left the conference center feeling overjoyed by the desire I saw in that community of believers to sing and proclaim the gospel and stir each other on to love and good works. But on the drive home yesterday, somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia, I heard the breaking news that a children’s Vacation Bible School session at a church in Michigan had been intruded upon by an active gunman. Thank God the story didn’t end in tragedy though, as a security guard fired...

 Thursday (September 11) The Blind See Double 1 Samuel 7:3-4 And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth form among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the LORD only. Hold on just a second. Did I really just read what I think I just read? You mean to tell me that even after 30,000 strong men got wiped out in battle and even after Eli and his sons died brutal deaths and even after the Philistines stormed off with the precious ark of God’s presence in broad daylight to the mourning shrieks of “Ichabod!”, these lamenting sons and daughters of Abraham who’ve lived to see a new day, these chosen people who received the Law of Moses and had been taught as rule number one not to have any other gods besides Jehovah, have been mou...

 Wednesday (September 10) An Imperfect Picture Judges 7:1-2 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took up the ark of the LORD and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the LORD. From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD. Don’t you admire the way Almighty God uses real, historical, physical persons, places, and events to paint a vivid picture of deeper spiritual realities? It’s as if all of life is a parable. As if all the commonplace comings and goings have a spiritual pulse to them. When theologians asked Jesus to describe the Kingdom of Heaven, ready with their quills to copy a treatise unlike any the world had ever seen, He instead effectively placed a tiny mustard seed in their hands and told them to go plant it in their gardens and watch it grow. And if they just obeyed, if they just stayed there ...

 Tuesday (September 9) Struck by Holiness 1 Samuel 6:19, 21 And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow. … So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to you.” Holiness is a threat to unrighteousness because unrighteousness is an afront to Holiness. Read that again a few times and let it sink it. Perhaps ‘threat’ seems like an odd word to use about something that is purely good, but it’s the most precise word in the English language that I can find. Because whenever unholy men, even if they’re relatively good men, even if they’re upstanding fathers and husbands and citizens in their communities, come face to face with a Holy God, either the collision will throw them to their knees in a metamorphosis of repentance, or it wil...

 Monday (September 8) Mountains and Milestones 1 Samuel 6:15, 18 And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the box that was beside it, in which were the golden figures, and set them upon the great stone. … The great stone by which they set down the ark of the LORD is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth shemesh. Often, the only thing separating a magnificent natural wonder and a profound spiritual event is a little inscription to memorialize the marriage of the two. Every billowing Niagara that isn’t distinguished by  some pebble mound to herald the salvation of a pilgrim or the local revival or the baptism of a new believer is like a musical score without a title. Imagine if Handel’s ‘Messiah’ was just an untitled hymn or Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ was called ‘No-Name,’ or the name of Chopin’s ‘Nocturne’ was left blank. Even a simple title, even if it contains only one little word, makes a world of difference, doesn’t it? Because a word like ‘moonl...

 Sabbath Psalm (September 6-7) (From Keith and Kristyn Getty’s hymn, “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”) What is our hope in life and death? Christ alone! Christ alone! What is our only confidence? That our souls to Him belong What holds our days within His hand? What comes apart from His command? And what will keep us to the end? The love of Christ in which we stand What truth can calm the troubled soul? God is good! God is good! Where is His grace and goodness known? In our great Redeemer’s blood Who holds our faith when fears arise? Who stands above the stormy trial? Who sends the waves that bring us nigh Unto the shore? The rock of Christ Unto the grave, what will we sing? Christ, He lives! Christ, He lives! And what reward will Heaven bring? Everlasting life with Him There we will rise to meet the Lord Then sin and death will be destroyed And we will feast in endless joy When Christ is ours forevermore!

 Friday (September 5) Moving with God? Or Just Moving On? 1 Samuel 6:13-14 "Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And when they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, they rejoiced to see it. The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. A great stone was there. And they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD." Bear in mind that the last time we saw the Israelite people, 30,000 men were lying dead on a battlefield, a 40-year-tenured priest had broken his neck beside a wall, and the cry ringing up from the Promised Land was “Ichabod!” We aren’t given any contextual clues in the narrative as to which of the twelve tribes lost the most men and which are still in mourning, nor are we given insight into the failure or success of the massive rebuilding effort that has taken place behind the scenes. However, doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that the people of Beth-shemes...

 Thursday (September 4) Confession: The Substance and the Symbol 1 Samuel 6:4-6 And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him?” They answered, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. … So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. … Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?” The biblical author gives no clarification as to whether or not these Philistines really needed to fashion golden icons as an add-on package to accompany the ark, or whether Almighty God would’ve simply accepted the ark’s return and immediately halted the plague, but let me suggest two principles from these diviners’ solution that are biblically sound and that I believe could significantly impact our own spiritual discipline of confession. The first relates to the materials these diviners specify for the gifts....

 Wednesday (September 3) When Even Pagans Get It Right 1 Samuel 6:2-3 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD?” … They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you.” Let the events of 1 Samuel 6 be a lesson to us that while it isn’t a good idea to seek the counsel of false teachers and clerics of dead religions, God can speak His wisdom through whatever means He wishes whenever He wants. Even devotees to Dagon are still humans made in the image of their true Creator, with a marred but not entirely lost perception of their relationship to Him. And the reasonableness of their response here fills me with hope that behind the scenes of the written narrative, somewhere between chapter 6 and 7, even these men bow the knee to Jehovah and do away wit...

 Tuesday (September 2) The Turn Tables Turn 1 Samuel 5:10-11a So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Isreal to kill us and our people.” They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” The sobbing echoes of “Ichabod,” though fainter now, still moan in the winds, still condensate in the atmosphere to form a heavy fog over the Promised Land, yet Almighty God is on the move even still. The progress made by predecessors that was hard fought and hard won, an advance that began with Moses calling out to Pharaoh, “Let God’s people go!”, and caravanned through the Red Sea and then wandered for forty years through a wilderness and then followed Joshua’s lead across the Jordan to defeat giants and take down fortif...

 Monday (September 1) Christ is Our Creed 1 Samuel 5:6-7 The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.”  Someone who was born and raised with a secularist progressive worldview won’t suddenly flip a switch and become a conservative. That change of ideology takes time. Likewise, a guy from Brooklyn whose dad was a diehard Dodgers fan and who grew up as a youngster supporting the Dodgers, won’t suddenly hit eighteen and become a Yankees fan. A Christian girl who’s raised by a Baptist preacher and who gets baptized in a river with her high school friends won’t just decide willy nilly to become a Catholic or a Presbyterian or an Anglican. Political affiliations and sports teams and even church denominations, while not...