Today I went bowling with my brother for the third and final time this summer. Bowling is an activity that we hadn't done much prior to this year, and it was fun seeing my brother go from getting mostly gutter-balls to being a decent bowler. We rented the lane for an hour, but couldn't seem to find our rhythm.

Devotion notes and thoughts

2 Samuel 23

Uriah the Hittite, husband of Bathsheba, was one of David's thirty mighty men. Thus we learn that David actually had one of his finest fighters struck down on the front lines of battle to take Uriah's wife as his own.

Isaiah 44

It is man's fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.

How can a man use some wood from a tree for burning and fuel, then take the rest of the wood, fashion an idol, and believe it to be a god? This is exactly what people were doing.

No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
"Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"

We need to examine the worldly things in our lives in a similar way. Just like a man who sets up a wooden idol as the god in his life, people in our times do the same thing with things like money, possessions, or positions.

a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
"Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"

Mark 5

Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

Would the people have responded the same way had the pig incident not occurred? Two thousand pigs was an extremely large number for a person to have, and all of them being lost in a single incident must have been a huge financial loss.