Prayer: A Commandment

The leftover question from yesterday is this: why don't our prayers always 'work?' In The Prayer of the Lord R.C. Sproul warns against even asking such questions:

"We have to guard against taking a fatalistic view of this matter of prayer. We cannot allow ourselves to dismiss prayer from our lives simply because it might not seem to have pragmatic value. Whether or not prayer works, we must engage in it, simply because God Himself commands us to do it. Even a cursory reading of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, reveals a deep emphasis on prayer, supplication, and intercession. It is inescapable that prayer is an expected activity for the people of God. Furthermore, our Lord Himself is the supreme model for us in all things, and He clearly made prayer a huge priority in His life. We can do no less."

Whether or not we get what we ask for from God is not the reason we pray in the first place. We pray because this is Christ's command, and because communication with our Heavenly Father is so very good for us.

My prayer for all of us is that God would gives us a greater sense of the blessing and privilege of talking to Him.

What Is Prayer Good For?

So why pray if God is sovereign and He's going to do what He wants to do anyway? Will anything change as a result of our prayers? The short answer, according to R.C. Sproul in The Prayer of the Lord, is this: the most important thing prayer changes is us. It is good for us.

"We can see this readily enough, at least for some of the elements of prayer. Consider, for instance, the elements of adoration and confession. God's existence is not dependent on our praises. He can get along without them. But we can't. Adoration is necessary for our spiritual growth. If we are to develop an intimate relationship with our heavenly Father, it is essential that we come to Him with words expressing reverence, adoration, and love. At the same time, it is necessary for us that we mention our sins before His throne. He knows what they are. In fact, He knows them more clearly and more comprehensively than we do. He gains nothing by our giving Him a recitation of our sins, but we need that act of contrition for the good of our souls."

I think that everyone would agree with this insight by R.C. The issue becomes more complex, however, when we ask God to provide us with next month's mortgage payment and He doesn't. Why don't we get what we ask for, even when two or more are gathered in His name? Isn't prayer supposed to be practical? Why doesn't prayer always work?

Are we even asking the right questions? Stay tuned...

Spoiler Alert!

The Magee home had one strict rule which was ignored by everyone except me: never read the last chapter of a book before you've read the book. I could never understand how people (yes, I'm talking about you!) would want to know how the story turned out or how the mystery was solved without investing the time to read the book in its entirety first. UGH.

SO it comes as a surprise, even to me, to write a blog about how I turned to the last chapter of a book before reading the previous ones. In my defense, I think it was the right thing to do. The book is The Prayer of the Lord by R.C Sproul. It is the next selection for the women at EPC - a ten week study of the Lord's Prayer.

The Appendix is entitled "If God is Sovereign, Why Pray?" Can you see why I thought it might be good to start here? The subject matter describes the complexity of believing in the sovereignty of God while still bringing our petitions before Him. Some people ask, "Why bother?" Here is how Sproul poses the dilemma:

"As soon as we set these two ideas - the sovereignty of God and the prayers of His people - side by side, we run into a very sticky theological question. Objections are raised from every quarter. People say: "Wait a minute. If God is sovereign, that is, if He has ordained every detail of what is taking place in our lives, not only in the present but in the future, why should we bother with prayer? Furthermore, since the Bible tells us that 'all things work together for good to those who love God' (Rom. 8:28), shouldn't we content ourselves that what God has ordained is best? Isn't it really just an exercise in futility, and even arrogance, for us to presume to tell God what we need or what we would like to happen? If what He ordains is best, what purpose is served by prayer to Him?"

Here is the spoiler alert: it DOES matter that we pray even if God is sovereign. The bad news here is that I'm not going to tell you why - until tomorrow and the next day. You will have to be content to wait; if you can't do that, you could buy the book and turn to the ending first. UGH. It still feels wrong to say this. :-)

Words for the Weekend

“If you read the Bible from cover to cover you realize that it narrates (proclaims!) a true and cohesive story: the good news that through Jesus Christ God has entered history to liberate and renew the world from its bondage to sin and suffering. This is the story of God, who pursues the restoration of his creation at the cost of his own life. He is making all things new (Rev 21:5)! That’s the simple and yet profound, life- and world-altering plot line of the Bible.”

- Michael R. Emlet, CrossTalk (Of First Importance)

Odd News Friday: Man's Best Friend (Or Not)

Great little news item in World Magazine this week - one which certainly is appropriate for Odd News Friday on CandyceLand:

"German police say a dog helped locate a suspect on Feb. 19, but it wasn't a police dog. When authorities arrived at the wanted man's home on that day, a friend holding a Jack Russell terrier said the man wasn't there. But the behavior of the dog made them suspicious. "When he put the dog down," police said in a statement, "it proceeded with a wagging tail to a small cupboard . . . and stood expectantly in front of it." The dog, it turns out, belonged to the suspect, who was "hunched up inside" the cupboard. Authorities did not identify the man or his alleged crime."

Probably everyone in the world thinks this is cute... except for one person...

Worldliness

The final chapter in Respectable Sins: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate by Jerry Bridges was a 'doozy.' (Don't you just love that word, doozy? I don't really know what it means, which means I can make it mean whatever I want!) Anyway, I digress...

The author defines "Wordliness" in this way: "It is being attached to, engrossed in, or preoccupied with the things of this temporal life. The things of this temporal life may or may not be sinful in themselves. What makes our attitude toward things that are not sinful worldliness is the high value we put upon them... Worldliness means accepting the values, mores, and practices of the nice, but unbelieving, society around us without discerning whether or not those values, mores, and practices are biblical."

Bridges then focuses on three common areas of worldliness that we are particularly susceptible to: Money (how do we spend what God has given us?), Immorality (are we "vicariously immoral," watching and reading that which is clearly contrary to Scripture?) and Idolatry (do we bow down to our careers, political or social issues, or sports, to the detriment of our relationships with God and our families?

As in every other chapter of this fantastic book, the antidote to "tolerating" these sins is twofold: recognizing these behaviors must come first, followed quickly by repentance. Bridges certainly has helped all of us participating in Women's Study this year with the first of these tasks; it is up to us, though, to following through on the second step.

May God help us to repent of our Respectable Sins; what a doozy of blessing would be ours!

Sins of the Tongue

This week in Women's Study we are completing our reading of Respectable Sins: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate. It has proven to be another excellent book authored by Jerry Bridges. I think we have all benefited from his insights into the types of sins that we tend to tolerate in ourselves. The last two chapters were no exception to this.

For instance, Chapter 19 focused on the "Sins of the Tongue." As Bridges points out, the Bible is full of references to this category of sins, with Proverbs alone containing more than sixty warnings against such behavior. So what is included in this list? It's extensive: "...profanity, gossip, lying, slander, critical speech (even when true), harsh words, insults, sarcasm, and ridicule."

What is the source of these sins? Bridges continues by writing:

"The common denominator of all these forms of negative speech is that they tend to put down, humiliate, or hurt the other person... This type of speech most often comes from an attitude of impatience or anger. Jesus said, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.' (Matthew 12:34) This means that although we speak of sins of the tongue, our real problem is our heart. Behind all our gossip, slander, critical speech, insults, and sarcasm is our sinful heart. The tongue is only the instrument that reveals what's in our hearts."

This is a scary, though true, concept. What will my words say about my heart today? Will I be able to restrain my speech to exhibit only care and concern for others?

Let us try to be like David in Psalm 19: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer."

Guest Blogger: Steve Magee

During a recent visit to Toronto, I met a new elder in one of our churches there. He told me that he had just come back from India, where his grandfather had traveled many years ago as a missionary to the Hmar people. At that time the Hmar tribe was considered an extremely dangerous group of headhunters. His grandfather, Watkins Roberts, had come from Wales to this section of Northern India to proclaim the message of Christ in that place. After staying a few years, it was not at all clear that there would be any lasting fruit from his efforts.

During our discussion, I mentioned that I thought I had heard about this story somewhere before. As it turned out, Candy and I had watched a movie about his grandfather years ago! Beyond the Next Mountain tells about Roberts and his eventual meeting with the son of a disciple trained by Roberts. As Candy and I watched that movie again the other night we realized that we had seen it already some years before. (By the way, it's great movie - available through Netflix.)

In any case, this grandson of Watkins Roberts had recently been contacted by organizers of the centennial anniversary of the coming of Christianity to their region of India. They asked this descendant of Watkins Roberts to come to India to help them in their celebration. He was floored by what he discovered on that visit. There were thousands upon thousands of people rejoicing in this great heritage. and they treated their honored guest from Canada as if he were royalty. What a story!

I thought that the readers of CandyceLand might be inspired by this little slice of heaven. I certainly was!

Steve Magee

The Benefits of Prayer

I read a wonderful review of a new book written by Sam Storms entitled A Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ, based on 2 Corinthians. Here is a sample of the author's thoughts on prayer:

1. The ones who pray experience the joy of being an instrument in the fulfillment of God’s purposes and delight in beholding how God works in response to their intercessory pleas.

2. The one who is prayed for experiences the joy of being delivered from peril or sustained in trial or being made the recipient of some otherwise unattainable blessing.

3. The one to whom prayer is offered (in every case, God) experiences the joy of being thanked, and thus glorified, for having intervened in a way that only God can in order to bless or deliver or save his people.

Sounds like a win-win-win situation! Let us be instruments in fulfilling God's purposes by blessing others through our prayers, and then thanking God for sustaining His people.

And let me remember to order this book...

Words for the Weekend

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength."

"Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives, is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see."

Corrie Ten Boom

Odd News Friday: Screenagers

Have you ever heard the phrase "screenagers?" Well, I hadn't either, until yesterday. Apparently it refers to teenagers who are addicted to the Internet. There is now a hospital program devoted to the treatment of this disorder:

"Teenagers who cannot tear themselves away from the Internet, computer games, or their mobile phone can get help from a new addiction service, a spokeswoman said Thursday. A private London hospital has launched Britain's first dedicated technology addiction service for what it dubbed "screenagers", after parents complained their children were flying into a rage when told to turn off their computer. Help will be offered through intensive in-patient, day care or group therapy to children as young as 12, although it is aimed at 15 to 17-year-olds, amid increasing concern about the amount of time they spend in front of a screen" (breitbart.com)

There seems to be some irony here - reading about this program on the internet... I wonder what the criteria is for admission to this program? Will there be programs for older addicts as well? Will Steve turn me in? :-)

Walking with God, Part 4

We've been looking at some insights given by J.C. Ryle in Heading for Heaven concerning our "walk with God." The Scripture that began this study was Genesis 5 in which it is stated that "Enoch walked with God, and he was not: for God took him." Obviously Enoch was favored by God, and God even spared him the experience of death. Our hope is that we could improve our "walk with God." Here is the last lesson from Ryle:

"But I say further, to walk with God is to walk in God's ways, to follow the laws He has given for our guidance, to look on His precepts as our rule and our counselor, to esteem all His commandments concerning all things to be right; to fear turning aside from the narrow path He has set before us for one single instant; to go straighforward, though all things seem against us, remembering the word on which He has caused us to hope."

There is a famous Frank Sinatra song entitled "My Way." Here is the first verse:

And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend I'll say it clear
I'll state my case of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

It seems as though this sentiment is the exact opposite of what Ryle is recommending. As a believer, I should shudder to even slightly desire to do life "My Way."

Dear God, place your restraining hand upon my life, and place the narrow path at my feet. Guide me in Your ways, and bring to my thoughts Your Word which is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Walking with God, Part 3

According to J.C. Ryle, the third way that we can best "...walk with God" as Enoch did in Genesis 5 is this:

"Again, he that walks with God is one of God's witnesses. He never hesitates to stand forward on the Lord's side. He is not content with giving his own heart to God, but he is ready and willing to bear his testimony in public on behalf of the cause of righteousness and truth. He (Enoch) thought not what his neighbors liked, but what his Lord required. He sought not to please the world, but to please God; and therefore, living in the midst of sin and corruption, he was separate from it. He was a witness against it; he was as the salt of the earth; he was as a light shining in a dark place."

What sort of witness have I been lately? Have I esteemed God enough to stand on His side? Or have I shrunk back out of fear of what others may say or think? Am I a God-pleaser, or a people-pleaser? Do I really desire to share righteousness and truth, or am I content to let others do so?

Heavenly Father, help me to be a witness to your love and grace. Give me courage to speak the truth without hesitation. Change me from being fearful of what others may think of me into being Your salt and light in this dark world.

Walking with God, Part 2

The topic this week is how to emulate Enoch in Genesis 5:24: "Enoch walked with God..." Yesterday J.C. Ryle recommended that in order to 'walk with God,' we need to be one of God's friends. Today's suggestion is even lovelier:

"Again, he that walks with God is one of God's dear children. He looks upon Him as His Father, and as such he loves Him, he reveres Him, he rejoices in Him, he trusts Him in everything... He thinks that God knows better than himself what is good for him, and so in everything that happens - sickness or health, sorrow or joy, riches or poverty - he says to himself, 'It is well: my Father sends this.' Such a one was Enoch."

I often struggle over the simplest decisions - whether to get a job, visit my parents this week or next, or whether to buy a generator for use in future storms. I kid myself when I believe I am capable of deciding the BIG issues of life. How fortunate I am that I have a Heavenly Father who is sovereign over all the days of my life.

My God and my King, You know what is good for me; please help me to trust in your kind providences each and every day, each and every moment. And when I struggle, please help me to say: "It is well: my Father sends this."

Walking with God, Part 1

Did you know that there are only two people in the history of the world who didn't die? Enoch and Elijah. Elijah, according to 2 Kings 2:11, "...went up by a whirlwind into heaven."
And "Enoch walked with God, and he was not: for God took him." (Genesis 5:24)

I have begun to read a small book by J.C. Ryle entitled Heading for Heaven. The first chapter is devoted to the verse concerning Enoch's entrance into heaven. Ryle states that we should have a clear understanding of what "...walking with God" really means. He has four short descriptions of what is meant by these words; therefore we will have four short posts devoted to his wise words.

1. "A man that walks with God is one of God's friends... He does not hide himself from the Lord, like Adam in the trees of the garden, but he seeks to be in constant communion with Him... he feels that he cannot be too much with Him, because he desires to be of the same mind, to think like Him, to act like Him, to be conformed to His image. Such a one was Enoch."

What a lovely first description of Enoch! This is a wonderful goal - to be so taken with God that we desire to constantly think, act, and actually be conformed to His image. Have I demonstrated these virtues today?

Please God, help me to love you in such a way that everything I do, speak, and think would glorify You today and always.

Words for the Weekend

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either experience or tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic… Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts - not only their own but their friends and neighbors.”

Tim Keller, The Reason for God

Prayer Request

Dear friends,

Last night I drove to Danbury, CT, to be with my parents who have both been hospitalized for different ailments. My mother had knee replacement surgery last month, and was in a rehab facility for physical therapy when she contracted a serious stomach ailment which caused her to be readmitted to the hospital. Yesterday my father was taken via ambulance to the hospital for pneumonia and heart abnormalities. Both of them have various other illnesses as well, making recovery difficult.

Please pray for healing, peace, and patience for both of them during this difficult time.

Every blessing,
Candy

Lies That Divide

This weekend I listened online to a great sermon by Steve Lawson who was speaking to ministers at a Shepherd's Conference sponsored by John MacArthur's church in California. The text was Job 1 - always a favorite with me. One of the more amazing insights that Lawson shared was that there are "...only three places in the Bible where we hear the actual voice of Satan recorded." Can you remember the three?

The first is in Genesis 3 when Satan speaks to Eve:

"Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' But the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'"

The second occurrence is in Job 1, when God asked Satan if he had considered Job who was "blameless and upright." Satan responds:

"Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face."

Is there a pattern here? Lawson rightly points out that in the first episode, Satan is informing Eve that God is not being good to her. In the Job passage, Satan is informing God that He is too good to His servant, Job. Satan will use any shrewd and scheming lie to further his agenda of causing division between God and His people.

Even the Lord's adversary knows that the love and goodness of God is the key to everything. Satan will try to twist the truth first one way and then another to serve his own strange purposes. Whatever else you may find confusing in this world, you should keep this firmly in your mind: God loves you, and the fact that He loves you is very, very good.

(The third episode, by the way, is in Matthew and Luke when Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness.)

How Soon They (We?) Forget...

It's really quite amazing how fickle God's Old Testament people were toward Him. They had cried out to God for release from their terrible afflictions in the land of Egypt, and God heard their pleas and answered them. They witnessed the ten plagues on Pharoah and his Egyptian countrymen: Nile River turning into blood, frogs, gnats, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death of firstborn sons. God's people were spared from all these acts of divine judgment. Finally Pharoah relented, and the Israelites were allowed to leave with all the silver and gold jewelry and clothing of their Egyptian neighbors. What a rescue!

They were then led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. How amazing would that have been to see? At the first sight of the Pharoah pursuing them, though, this is the reaction of the Israelites:

"They said to Moses, 'Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.' "

God responded by parting the Red Sea for the Israelites to escape to safety. When they were on the other side and witnessed the total destruction of the entire Egyptian army, they rejoiced, sang songs, danced, and played tambourines.

Three days later they were grumbling once again against God and Moses because they were thirsty. They were supplied with twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees.

Very soon thereafter they were hungry and complained once again:

"Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

They were then fed by bread from heaven.

See the pattern? Complain, blessing, complain, blessing. How sad. But is this any different for us? Do we cry out for help from God, receive it, then move on to the next session of whining? Oh, I think this is definitely one pattern of human sin.

It is far easier for us to recognize this pattern in others than to see it in ourselves. Let's pray that God would reveal to us our ungrateful and forgetful attitudes toward all the blessings He pours out on us each and every day.

Words for the Weekend

"The single most important thread in working through your disappointments is that your heart and mind ponder and grasp what the cross of Jesus Christ is all about. There is no pattern without the cross. There is no Good News without it. That is what the gospel is all about."

Ravi Zacharias

Odd News Friday: Here's the story, of a lovely lady...

I've confessed to many things here on CandyceLand, but today's revelation is perhaps the most embarrassing. Ready? I LOVED to watch the Brady Bunch when I was growing up! I watched it religiously. I thought Mike and Carol (the parents) were cool; I thought Alice (the housekeeper) was cool; and of course I thought Marcia and Greg (the oldest kids) were cool. I wanted to BE a Brady...

So throughout the years I've heard rumors about a big Brady reunion, and hoped that it would actually happen. This past Wednesday I came across a story entitled "Who Really Canceled the Brady Bunch Reunion?" Imagine my surprise to find out that it has never occurred because Marcia and Jan have been fighting - in a feud all these years. Of course, both sides aren't publicly speaking about this, and there is only speculation of the cause of the rift between the two.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what Mike and Carol's plan is for reconciling the two daughters. :-)

A Pastoral Visit

Everyone, of course, lives in fear of "the pastoral visit," the time when the pastor of your church comes to your home and does a "spiritual check-up" on your progress in the Lord. I vividly remember one such visit - at the time we belonged to Christ Presbyterian Church and our minister was T. David Gordon. We sat down at the kitchen table of our condo in Merrimack, NH, and he asked me this question: "What has surprised you the most from the teaching you have received this past year?" My response? I had been thrilled to learn that Christ was everywhere on the pages of the Old Testament. Never before had I been instructed so succinctly and convincingly that the revealing of the person and work of Jesus actually began in Genesis.

As it turns out, Dr. Gordon was following the Apostle Paul's model of teaching:

"When they had appointed a day for him (Paul), they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets." (Acts 28:23)

Oh what a thrill it was to have been instructed in this way by a minister of the Gospel! How much richer I was for seeing our Lord and Savior in all His glory from the opening pages of Genesis until the closing ones of Revelation.

Thank you, Dr. Gordon; you are a good and faithful servant of Our Lord.

I Told You So!

I have to confess to being an "I told you so" kind of person. I really do try not to think that way, or worse yet, say those words, but regrettably they do occasionally slip out. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that the Apostle Paul actually said those very words as well! The story was told in Acts 27. Paul was about to embark on a journey by ship when he said this:

" 'Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.' But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said."

As might be expected, Paul was correct in his assessment of the danger involved, the ship was overcome in a storm, they had to jettison the cargo, and the crew and passengers were without food for many days. Now we come to the "I told you so" part:

"Paul stood up among them and said, 'Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said 'Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.' "

It would be nice if I could fall back on Paul's words to justify my own, but the similarities end almost immediately. First, Paul is Paul, and I am not. Second, Paul was visited by an angel. And third, Paul was probably only saying the "I told you so" words to validate his new advice.

I'm pretty sure my use of the phrase is much less admirable...

Three Cheers for the Little Guy

I have always gravitated toward the underdog in movies, sports, or real life. I love to root for the unknown hero in all spheres. For instance, one of my favorite movies is Rudy, the story of a young man who has lived his whole life in the shadow of Notre Dame football - and desires to play one day for his beloved hometown college. Or perhaps it explains my love of Red Sox baseball - playing the game for 87 years without winning a World Series. (I'm actually less interested now that they have won. I'm currently rooting for the Chicago Cubs!)

But I digress - the point is that I tend to notice "the little people" wherever they show up. Last week I was reading through the book of Acts and found one:

"Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush (to kill Paul), so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. Paul called one of the centurions and said, 'Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.' So he took him and brought him to the tribune and said, 'Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, as he has something to say to you.' The tribune took him by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, 'What is it that you have to tell me?' "

So Paul's nephew retold his story, and Paul was then saved from being ambushed and murdered.

This is the only reference to Paul's immediate family - we only know that he had a sister, who had a son. But what courage it must have taken for this "young man" to make his way into Paul's prison, and then have to go before one of the centurions, who would then bring him to the tribune. I'm sure Paul, his sister, and all of Paul's followers were very grateful for this act of bravery.

And what reward was "the son of Paul's sister" given? Well, part of his life story IS written in the Bible, and now in 2010 he IS the topic of a Candyceland blog. That's something, isn't it??? Imagine his surprise when this was posted at 5AM today! :-)

Four Terrible Words

Everyone in the Christian world seems to have a 'favorite' Bible verse, but I have a 'least favorite' one as well. Here it is:

"Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. He passed away, to no one's regret..." (2 Chronicles 21:20)

Isn't that just awful? To die, without anyone caring at all? Even a little bit?

To be fair, Jehoram was probably one of the worst kings in the history of Judah, or even in the history of the world. He began his reign by murdering many family members. He was so evil that Elijah sent him a letter prophesying the incredibly horrible means of death he would experience. (I will spare you the details - but 2 Chronicles 21 does not...) No one thought highly of Jehoram while living, and everyone was relieved when he died.

Many people in this world desire to be famous, and Jehoram certainly achieved that goal. But as for me, I would much rather live a quiet and simple life and have someone regret my death just a little, than to be known by all and have my end be "...to no one's regret."