Today's Favorite Verse: 1 Samuel 20:31-33

Today's Favorite Verse: 1 Samuel 20:31-33
"For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die.
And Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said unto him, Wherefore shall he be slain? what hath he done?
And Saul cast a javelin at him to smite him: whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David."

Wow, this didn't make sense. Saul anger is kindled against Jonathan because he was protecting David. He then says to Jonathan that as long as David lives you won't have a kingdom. Trying to turn Jonathan against David by tempting him with gain. Then Saul tries to throw a javelin to smite him. Well that only means he tried to kill Jonathan too. If Saul was so worried about Jonathan inheriting the kingdom after him, then that made no sense. I feel that Saul was just plain mad or insane at this point. His jealousy of David has made him totally out of control. It actually made me ponder on the increase of murder suicides I have seen in the news. People have just plain gone mad. Why is that? It's just like what I read yesterday they are possessed as was Saul with "an evil spirit, which was not of the Lord".

This also made me reflect on a conversation we had in family scripture reading the other day. We discussed illness and how many times in the New Testament Christ cast out an evil spirit to heal them. The story that stands out to me is in Mark 9 where the father asks Christ to heal his son, after the other apostles were unable to. What he describes as his son's condition sounds like epilepsy. When asked if he believes the father says "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

"When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him."  (Mark 9:25)

This just makes me wonder how much illness has a root of an evil or foul spirit effecting a person? How much mental illness is really the spirit leaving and an evil one taking its place. I know I won't have an answer to this in my lifetime. But, there must be a reason why Christ cast out evil spirits to heal people, even when it's a condition we think of medicine controlling today. Which do I have more faith in medicine or Christ?  How is one to know the balance? I have to think it is only by having the spirit to be with me. I have to take care to not make the spirit leave and have an evil one take its place. I must have faith in Christ to be healed, so I must have faith in Christ to not have the evil overtake me. I have no idea on the balance regarding illness, but I do know how different issues I once had changed, when I turned to the Lord to be healed.


Day 831