I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.
‭‭2 Samuel‬ ‭1‬:‭26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Lamenting the death of Jonathan, his close friend and son of King Saul, David’s verse highlights the profound bond they shared.

Jonathan’s love and loyalty were exceptional, even surpassing typical romantic love, reflecting the depth of their friendship with loyalty, grief, and the pain of loss.

Platonic love can be just as meaningful and impactful as romantic relationships.

Losing someone so close and devoted is a heartache familiar to many of us.

While a part of us dies amid such loss, a new part of us is born of the memories and experiences that forge us into greater maturity.

Loss is only loss if we refuse to let it transform us from the same death to the new life as they now enjoy.

We depend on the character, good judgment, and wisdom of thousands of complete strangers for us to remain alive each day.

Other drivers, people we pass on the street, food preparers, basically everyone in the community we interact with or who contributes to the fabric of our daily lives is essentially on an honor system.

Total strangers.

By trust alone, we survive on hope that most have good intentions, are educated in their roles and occupations, and are in a reasonably healthy mental state, at least for that moment.

Now, multiply that number of people by the number of family and friends you love and hold dear and the fragility and likelihood of any of us living to the next day is nothing short of frightening.

Yet news of how society continues to fail us, mental health deteriorates, and basic morals and education decline, it’s an actual miracle we all have stayed relatively intact and unscathed for this long with all these odds increasingly stacked against us.

This is precisely why we pray.

Wise as serpents and gentle as doves (Matthew 10:16) is our instruction for survival in a random and unpredictable world.

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. 

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Modern day virtue signaling.

It’s hypocrisy on steroids.

The Bible instructs us that true faith in Jesus is naturally evidenced by works that result. 

Works should be both a quality output and a quantity outcome solely because of whose we are. And they should be commonplace, not rare. 

Without Jesus as a reason, many seek a self-attribution for their good deeds and seek publicity. 

“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Matthew tells us that works are of no consequence to a God who, most of all, longs to KNOW us, daily, deliberately, and deeply. 

It was young David who the Lord made king due to Saul’s disobedience. David killed Goliath the Philistine giant with a sling and a stone and was admired by many, most significantly Jonathan.

You’ve got a friend in me.

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.
‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭18‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

You’ve got my back.

Each of us longs for such a friend.

When you come to know the character and potential of another, sometimes it’s such a rare find it compels a love and devotion that aligns and joins you together as one in spirit and purpose, not unlike a marriage.

Loyalty, fidelity, devotion, commitment, in the Bible there is no recorded model of friendship closer than that of Jonathan and David.

Jonathan risked his all and saved David from his jealous father’s sword many times and did so at deeply personal sacrifice. The dialogue between the two is immensely powerful throughout the book. I encourage you to read it yourself.

Each time I have encountered this story it has resonated with me across the spectrum of my own life.

I have always desperately wanted a Jonathan in my life. I think I would have become a much different man than I am today.

Samuel said to Saul:

The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.
‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭10‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day.
‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭10‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

There’s been a resurgence of signs and prophecies reported pointing to end times that are upon us.

Signs and prophecies were once the guides to entire societies, directing its leaders and people to actions and victories.

Today, few follow or believe in them as little more than conspiracy theories or rants from religious extremists.

As history continues to unfold before us, there are clear signs that much of what was once predicted did indeed appear in scripture long ago.

Adherents will continue to warn us of what’s just around the corner and what’s soon to come, using arguments increasingly hard to ignore.

To be best prepared for the days ahead, we recognize the writing on the walls and acknowledge that while signs and prophecies may detail and confirm our present circumstances, it might be that they were given writ large to build our faith in God during these increasingly difficult times.

Or both.

End times are always upon us. They have been for centuries.
And they will continue to be until the day of the Lord arrives which none of us truly know.

Takeaway: Readiness and preparedness are not difficult to attain if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

This verse appears several times in the book of Judges:

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
‭‭Judges‬ ‭21‬:‭25‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Without a standard or authority, individuals acted based on their own desires and interpretations of right and wrong, resulting in widespread chaos, corruption and violence.

The foreshadowing of the need for a king was obvious if society was to survive.

People have a need to be governed to thrive, flourish, and remain safe. Reasonable guidance with reasonable consequences are primary functions of social governance.

Problems accrue when government forces, controls, constrains, and constricts in excess.

As a takeaway, we need enough freedom to make our own individual good or bad choices but not so much freedom that political, philosophical, or social anarchy prevails.

God never forces his hand.

His standards lie in that realm of human choices: to love God and his standards that bring life, or to be lovers of self where everyone does as they see fit to their own eventual demise.

And then there’s Samson and Delilah…

The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”
‭‭Judges‬ ‭16‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

After sharing three very wrong answers with her…

“Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.””
‭‭Judges‬ ‭16‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In spite of his love for her, she had evil motives in discovering his secret and he’d provided himself with three opportunities to realize this.

Is love blind?

Her shaming and manipulation eventually brought down Samson, stealing the true secret of his strength and eventually his own life.

Love is blind. Or at the very least, it can too easily weaken our resolve.

I realize this may be the simplest takeaway of many we can derive from their story, but because of his arrogance and ignorance, it consequently turned deadly.

Samson was captured and had his eyes gouged out by the Philistines, which both ironically and symbolically illustrates my point so poignantly.

Love is blind.

This is what the Lord says— Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty—: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭44‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

If we are exceptionally good at anything, it’s creating gods for ourselves. 

People elevating things to a status or place of worship is commonplace in the Bible and is a primary offense to God. 

Often unintentionally, drugs, drinking, eating, sex, and a host of other vices become the gods we worship, obey, and choose to spend the most time with.

But our God is a jealous God. 

To watch you make a conscious choice directing your affections elsewhere breaks his heart and violates his intentions. 

People were made for worship. It’s embedded in our personal constitution. 

We were created to worship our creator, of whom, despite our circuitous attempts, there is no substitute. 

I, you, we, are owned. 

That makes God’s jealousy make perfect sense. 

He wants you. He fights for you. He gave his only son as a sacrifice for you. 

Let go of things you try to constitute as god and come back to your creator, the real thing. 

Unlike most others, I find few things ‘amazing’ in daily life.

‘Great,’ ‘unexpected,’ ‘surprising’ even, but rarely ‘amazing.’

I’d always learned that truly amazing experiences are reserved for the unexplainable, logic-defying, fortuitous things that they are and always will be.

A huge turnout at your party, a tasty lemon chicken, or a flurry of friendly visits when you’re sick in bed just doesn’t meet criteria. Furthermore, ‘amazeballs’ isn’t a word. Don’t even go there.

On a final note, if something is indeed truly amazing, tell the world.

We all desperately need inspiration by something genuinely wondrous, mysterious and magical these days.