Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

 I prompted AI to write this story... The Prodigal’s Mother She heard him before she saw him—the gate complaining on its hinge, the old sound of return. The servants ran. The father ran. But she stayed where she was, hands wet with flour, the dough cooling under her palms. He stood in the yard thinner than memory, a man-shaped apology. Dirt clung to him as if it had chosen him. When he lifted his eyes, he looked first for his father, then—hesitating—for her. The father embraced him with the clumsy relief of a man who had rehearsed grief too long. “My son,” he said, as if saying it might stitch the years together. Orders flew. A calf lowed. Sandals were fetched. A ring found its way onto a finger that had known other weights. Only then did she step forward. She did not touch him. “So,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “you’ve remembered the road.” He opened his mouth, closed it. The speech he had practiced collapsed like a tent in wind. “Mother—” “You left hungry mouths here...

'In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord , make me dwell in safety.' Psalm 4:8 ESV I'm not wishing to belittle insomnia. Yet sleep is a gift of God. I don't regularly suffer from insomnia, but at times I have I have literally gone mad, like any of us would if we didn't get enough sleep. Without wishing to generalise, I think a lot of insomnia is down to doubting that God helps us to dwell in safety. If that's us, we can ask him for the free gift of faith in him. If we get a good night's sleep, or any rest at all, we should be thankful to him. I think insomnia can lead us one or two ways. It can drive us away from God in despair, or towards God in prayerful dependence for the rest we need. I'm sure David had plenty of sleepless nights in his tumultuous life, but he trusted in God to give him the rest he needed. When David was a fugitive, on the run from murderous king Saul, or even as a king battling enemy kingdoms, he must have str...

'many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah ' Psalm 3:2 ESV I relate to David here. This Psalm was written when his life was unravelling. Many casual observers assumed there was no salvation for him in God. To casual observers of my life, there may be no salvation for me in God. Many people assume that if we do good, good will come to us; if we do bad, bad will come to us. The problem is that none of us deserve God's salvation. God promised David a Descendant whose Kingdom will never end. That was David's hope. The Son of David is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah and Saviour of the world. He was born in David's town and died outside David's city to redeem us to himself. David didn't deserve salvation. He was a murderer and adulterer. I don't deserve salvation either, but my hope is in Jesus, not in myself. 'God, words cannot express how grateful we are that our salvation doesn't depend on us...

'He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. ' Psalm 2:4 ESV A worldly caricature of God is of a cosmic killjoy, some grumpy old man up in the sky with an almighty chip on his shoulder. The reality is profoundly different. If I can say this reverently, God has a sense of humour. As far as God's concerned, the biggest joke is mankind's rebellion against him. We might assume he's helplessly wringing his hands at our iniquities against him. Yet from his point of view, us opposing God is like an ant opposing an anteater (multiplied by infinity!)! We might rebel against God. Yet we will ultimately fail. Even if we gain the world and lose our souls, that is not to our profit. When we look at tyrants carving out empires for themselves, we might feel helpless in the face of evil. Yet God knows they're mere mortals who will ultimately have to give an account to him for their actions, like the rest of us. Unless we trust in the Son of God, we'r...

'And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ' Genesis 2:22 Adam must surely have had the easiest marriage ever! All he had to do was to go to sleep. When he woke up, his wife was there! Along the way, Adam lost a rib, but even that illustrates the relationship women have with men. As the famous commentator Matthew Henry said, woman wasn't taken from man's head to dominate him. She wasn't taken from his feet to be dominated by him. Woman was taken from beside man's arm to be protected by him, near his heart to be loved by him. Some people think that woman being created after man means she's subservient to him. The Bible actually shows how valuable woman is: as the song goes, and I paraphrase, man can do a lot, but this world wouldn't mean nothing without a woman on it. God created the universe perfectly. Yet until he created women it was incomplete. As Bob Dylan sang, 'man gave names to all th...

'But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ' Genesis 3:9 ESV I wonder if God is asking the same of us today. 'Where are you?' At the time of typing, I'm at the local library on one of their computers. Yet I don't think God was only being literal with Adam. God is omniscient. He knows full well where every one of us is at any one time. Yet he also knows where we're at spiritually. Sometimes, where we're at literally reveals where we're at spiritually. Adam was literally hiding in the bushes because he was ashamed of himself for disobeying God. If we're atheists or agnostics, it could be argued that we're metaphorically 'hiding in the bushes' from the Almighty. To be honest, even our religious efforts are like Adam and Eve's fig leaves, a pathetic attempt to cover up our spiritual bankruptcy. God needed to kill animals to make clothing out of their skins to clothe Adam and Eve's nakedness. Similarly, w...

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis 4:9 ESV This is an outrageous verse. Cain had just murdered his younger brother Abel. God knew exactly where Abel was, lying dead in the ground, but was giving Cain an opportunity to repent. Far from repenting, Cain decided to act like a stroppy teenager with the Sovereign Lord God Almighty, the Judge of all the earth. To be honest, God was staggeringly gracious with Cain, not just here, but for the rest of his life. Cain deserved death for his murder of Abel, but God made sure no one killed Cain. Cain ended up having a successful life humanly speaking. Spiritually however, there's no indication that he ever repented of his fratricide. We can only assume that he is lost for eternity. As Jesus said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his soul? Cain is a classic example of that. As the first man ever to be born, the world was his oyster a...

Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Genesis 5:22 ESV The implication is that Enoch didn't walk with God until he fathered Methuselah. I actually think this verse is referring to a literal walk with the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, allow me to explain myself. In the Garden of Eden, we're told that God was in the habit of walking there in the cool of the day. I believe that to be the pre-incarnate Son of God, who I understand literally moulded Adam out of clay and literally breathed the breath of life (his Holy Spirit) into him. So I think Enoch was so overwhelmed by becoming a dad that he asked God to walk with him, and God graciously responded. In context, we're told that it came to a point where Enoch walked with God, and then was no more. He literally didn't die, but walked with his Lord into glory (maybe a sweet chariot swung low eventually for to carry him home!). It all started when he became a dad to M...

Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” Genesis 6:3 ESV This verse makes it sound like God's patience has an expiry date. If we read it wrongly, we might assume that God's patience wears thin after 120 years. I want to try and challenge that assumption. In this very same chapter, we read that Noah found grace/favour in the eyes of God. We know from the rest of the account of Noah that he wasn't perfect. He got drunk at one stage. Yet God was patient with Noah. God showed Noah grace and favour even though he didn't deserve it. The God of Noah is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Some people have lived longer than 120 years since God said this, Noah included. What I think it means is that our average life expectancy will never exceed 120. Thankfully, if we find grace and favour with God through Noah's Descendant Jesus crucified on our behalf, God's patience with us doesn't have an ...