For Real

What do you think about the statement, "We'll never make a significant difference in any arena until it becomes a righteous obsession?" Well, I think about Rizpah. In Samuel 21:1-14 there is a story about a woman with a righteous obsession.

During the reign of David, there was a famine that hit the land for three successive years. This famine had come upon the land on account of Saul and his blood stained house. Saul had all but decimated the Gibeonites, in spite of God's warning to leave them alone. David went to the Gibeonites and asked how he might make amends for the wrong done to them at the hand of Saul. They responded by asking for seven blood relatives of Saul to be put to death.

So King David said "I will give them to you." He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord. They were hung and their bodies were to remain until the rain fell. Rizpah took a sack cloth and stayed with the bodies, one of them being her sons, beating away the buzzards and beasts of the night for five months.

She made her children her righteous obsession. They were accounted as accursed and unworthy of the burial of dogs' but she would not cast them out of her heart. Even though the bodies were rotting away she still stood by them and beat away the flesh eating buzzards.

The rain came. David noticed what Rizpah had done and, because of her heart of endurance and love, he took the bones and placed them in Kish's royal tomb. Rizpah's righteous obsession helped them to go and see the king.

Do I have a heart of endurance and love that keeps fighting for sin-decaying souls? Am I filled with a righteous obsession for the lost and decaying souls of this world? Am I causing others to go and see the king?