Crippled

[Kabowd]

This comes from 2 Samuel 9. Yod asked me why I'd want to meet Mephibosheth and it reminded me of this, so I thought I'd post it:

This is an awesome story my brother shared with me of a guy named Mephibosheth. We'll just call him Mep for short. Mep was the son of Jonathan, and the grandson of King Saul. When David became king, Mep's nurse was afraid that he would be killed...so she tried to run with him to protect him. But somehow as they were running, Mep fell and ended up crippled in both of his feet.

Later (im not sure how long it took, it may have been years) David arrived and wanted to know if Jonathan had any family left that he could take care of because he and Jonathan had made a covenant to take care of eachother's families forever. The servant tells him that Mep is alive, but that he is crippled and living in a place called Lo Debar with someone named Machir. (Remember those names, they'll be important later).

David has Mep brought back and says,

"Don't be afraid, I'm going to show you kindness and take care of you because of my covenant with your father" (my paraphrase)

But Mep says,

"Why would you do that? I'm worth as much as a dead dog."

Well, we all know how valuable road kill is. I think Mep's response shows us how worthless he felt and how disappointed he was in his life. Think about it: he was supposed to be king one day, he had everything a boy could dream of at

one time. And now here he was crippled and living in poverty. I think he felt hopeless. Here's something interesting about those names I mentioned above: the name "Machir" means 'sold' and the place "Lo Debar" means 'barren'.

So Mephibosheth had literally sold out and was living in a dry and barren place.

Anyway, David promises that Mep will have everything a king should have. He says that he will always eat at his table. Another intersting fact is that the name Mephibosheth that Jonathan had given his son, meant 'you shall never walk in shame'. Here he was, helpless and hopeless, with a name that meant "you shall never walk in shame". I bet Mep felt like he had been named wrong all those years...until David invited him to his table. The story ends with this verse (13)

"And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king's table,

and he was lame in both feet."

I think this is a cool story because so many of us look at our circumstances and feel hopeless. We are 'crippled' with different things. It might be fear, bitterness, pride etc. But God wants to take care of us and show us kindness. Like Mephibosheth, He wants us to stick our crippled feet under His table. The moral of this story is this: victory for us isn't determined by the absence of weakness. Mep's feet were still the same! We all have some kind of weakness. But if we accept God's invitation, and put our feet under His table, He will take care of us and we won't ever have to walk in shame.

[hippo's hope is HIM]

WOW.

out of all your posts, this is my favorite. That is totally awesome Tess.

I think I will print that and show it to my Sunday School class if that is okay.

man! that was good.

[larryt]

Good post Tess.

You are blessed to have a Bro. like that to help you with the Word.

LT

[jcm]