Today is all about communication.

Let’s begin with Mephibosheth and finish yesterday’s story.  When last we left Mephibosheth, Ziba had reported to King David that Mephibosheth was siding with Absalom, David’s son who stole the throne.  David, in response, took Mephibosheth’s property and gave it all to Ziba.  However, when David returns to power, who is waiting for him but Mephibosheth, in obvious mourning since David left.  Ziba had lied about him to get his land, and David sets things right.

Next is David himself.  At the death of his son Absalom, David goes in to mourning.  Now when a king goes in to mourning of this magnitude, people tend to die around him, so the whole army gets very nervous.  Though they won the war and defeated the usurper of David’s throne, David was making them feel like they had failed or even sinned against him.  Thankfully, Joab confronts David in his grief, a life-risking proposition, and convinces David to encourage his troops rather than shame them.

Sheba, seeing that Absalom’s coup was successful for a while, tries his hand at the “overthrow the king” game.  But Joab, David’s military commander, corners him in Abel Beth Maakah and attacks the city.  But they are saved when a Wise Woman agrees to hand Sheba over (or at least his head).

Finally, we find the famous “persistent widow” in Jesus’ parable.  To get a ruling in her favor, she doesn’t study and convince the judge of her righteousness (he doesn’t fear God) and she doesn’t call up a Facebook campaign and start a protest movement in her favor (he doesn’t care what people think).  Instead, she simply keeps on bugging him.  In negative terms, she nags and badgers him, wearing him down.  In positive terms, she persists.  And this, Jesus says, should be a familiar pattern in our prayer life – persistence.

Ziba’s manipulation.  David’s discouragement.  The Wise Woman’s compromise.  The widow’s persistence.  Communication is a powerful tool, both for good and evil.  We have to watch out that we are using our communication for God’s good, not for personal gain.  Gossip, slander, lies, discouragement, manipulation: all of these go on every day and are sins of communication.  But praise, encouragement, truth-telling:  these are all Godly uses of our tongues.  Which will you choose to do today?

“Rather, (God) devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from Him.” (1 Sam. 14:14)

David is having his second “You are that man!” moment in two days.  The first is Nathan the Prophet, accusing David of stealing Bathsheba from the righteous and relatively poor Uriah.  Now it’s the wise woman from Tekoa with Joab’s words in her mouth accusing David to leaving his son Absalom banished.  Sometimes it takes a few different reminders to teach us the lessons God wants us to learn.

Who have you banished?  We all have people we have banished from our lives.  The friend who stabbed us in the back.  The family member who we simply don’t see anymore.  The co-worker who lives a different lifestyle than we do.  The stranger who is simply “too sinful” for our acceptance.  Who have you banished in your life?

Though we don’t like to admit or talk about it, God does banish some people from His presence.  That is what sin does.  As with Adam and Eve when they had to leave Eden, our sin causes us to be banished from the good God wants for us.  But, as the wise woman from Tekoa reminds us, He doesn’t leave us banished.  God devises a way so that we who are banished are able to return.  That way is the cross of Jesus Christ.  Through Jesus’ atoning death in our place, taking our punishment, our banishment, upon Himself, we are given a path out of sin’s banishment and back into the Good Life God has in store for us.  All we have to do is receive it.

But there’s a catch.  To receive this free “get out of banishment” card, we have to first give that card to those we have ourselves banished.  Only then, when we are done banishing others, can we truly accept God’s great gift of a return to Grace.