What do you think of when you think of the word “Despise?” That is the word that the Bible uses to describe Michal’s feelings towards David. She saw him dancing before the Lord and she despised him! There are times when we despise someone, when we have bitterness towards another person, when all the hurt and anger is like a thick blanket, suffocating us. What is the answer? We’ll find out in just a minute!Contributor: This week we will hear from Christy, who shares with us a story about a stressful experience she had as a young adult with a difficult boss. It wasn’t until she turned to God in prayer that He showed her a beautiful lesson of forgiveness.

What do you think of when you think of the word “Despise?” That is the word that the Bible uses to describe Michal’s feelings towards David. She saw him dancing before the Lord and she despised him! There are times when we despise someone, when we have bitterness towards another person, when all the hurt and anger is like a thick blanket, suffocating us. What is the answer? We’ll find out in just a minute!Contributor: This week we will hear from Christy, who shares with us a story about a stressful experience she had as a young adult with a difficult boss. It wasn’t until she turned to God in prayer that He showed her a beautiful lesson of forgiveness.

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Starting with Jesus

Heather Bennett

Reflect and Renew January 2023

The Last Days of Saul

King at Last

In my early twenties, I was newly married and excited to land my first job. A few months in, I started to notice things were different. That's when the fault findings started. While I went home every day and cried, I literally got to the end of my rope and that's what it took to get down on my knees. Welcome to Refresh and Renew. Hi, I'm Heather, and I'm so glad that you'll be joining me today. We will be learning and growing together in our walk with Jesus. You will surely be encouraged and challenged as we study week by week and hear from the experiences of others. This week, our focus is on a special story about Miha and her reaction to her husband David, when he did something that she despised. Have you had a chance to read the Renew starting with Jesus Devotional this week to Rita for yourself? Just go to our website starting with jesus.com/renew, or you can sign up for the devotional to be emailed to you. Just email us at renew starting with jesus.com and let us know that you want those devotionals sent to your inbox each week. That way you can read the devotional and then join me as we talk about the lesson. If you haven't had a chance yet to read the lesson, I just wanna highlight some points that the author Merl Courrier brings out this week. Our story begins with Mi, how despising David because of the way he was acting as they brought the arc of God to Jerusalem? Let's think about what had happened in Miha and David's past relationship many years earlier. Miha was given by her father, saw to David as his wife, and as time went by and Saul became more and more jealous, he wanted to kill David, but Miha stepped in and saved David's life by helping him to escape. While David was running for his life and hiding in the strongholds, Miha was given in marriage to another man. It wasn't until years later that Miha was given back to David. We don't know if Miha was glad to see David or sad to leave her second husband, but we do know that she eventually became hostile toward him. Look at our key Tex for this week. It's found in Second Samuel chapter six, verse 16. That's Second Samuel chapter six, verse 16. Now, as the arc of the Lord came into the city of David Miha saw his daughter looked through a window and saw David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. Have you ever despised someone? Maybe because how they acted or what they said, living with feelings of bitterness will just end up hurting us, so what is the answer? Forgiveness, choosing to forgive, making that choice each day, each moment to let go of the bitterness and forgive that person. This week we will hear from Christie. She studied the renew lesson and will share a story with us about a stressful experience she had as a young adult with a difficult boss. It wasn't until she turned to God in prayer that he showed her a beautiful lesson of forgiveness, a lesson that has affected her relationships since then. In my early twenties, I was newly married and excited to land my first job working at a local newspaper in a small town. It was me and one other girl in my department, and we had a boss. She was about 10 years older than I was at the time, and I really looked up to her. Things really started out well. She took me through training on my computer and showed me how we get the paper ready for the press each week. Well, a few months in, I started to notice things were different. She started playing favorites, not talking to me as much, not eating lunch with me. That's when the fault findings started. I just couldn't do anything right. She started yelling at me, stomping around, storming around the office, rustling up the papers on her desk, just very unhappy at anything I tried. While I went home every day and cried, I kept asking myself, what's the solution for this problem? What did I do wrong? I was tempted to be angry and to quit my job, to be resentful, even revengeful. I literally got to the end of my rope, and that's what it took to get down on my knees and the Lord. He started to work on my heart, and as I think about that time, what lessons did he teach me? Well, first he taught me that I needed to tell him about my problems. I didn't need to go gossiping to other workers at the office. I needed to go to him and pray, and he showed me that no earthly person could fix the abuse I was under. Second, he showed me that he could heal the pain and he could take the bitterness out of my heart that he was big enough to do that, but I needed to allow him to do that. The third thing he showed me was he could give me new eyes, and what I mean by that is the empathy and the sympathy for this woman who had to be miserable. For her to have that kind of behavior, he showed me how he looks at her, so instead of focusing on my hurt, I started to think about, well, what kind of hurt is she going through? What kind of home life does she have? What kind of past does she have? The empathy replaced that pain in my heart, and lastly, he showed me that it's a choice that I would have to repeat this cycle with each challenging moment because well, the behaviors continued for a while, but I reacted to it differently because the choice that he allowed me to make and that he walked me through this life lesson showed me how important forgiveness is in the Bible. God even talks about not letting any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble in our lives. In Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15, God knew I needed to learn lessons of forgiveness in my life at a young age. Why? Well, because as I grew older and had more experiences in my marriage and as a mother, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, I would be tempted, oh, so tempted to be bitter at times, but this experience really helped me. It helped me heal, and it helps me to remember when I face those challenges now, what God has done for me in the past. It's so important to not forget that I can accomplish this by telling stories like this one today or write stories in a journal of where God has led in the past, and when I look back on that, God's goodness, it gives me the strength to face the challenge for that day. Finally, forgiveness has been so important in my life because it's during those moments of intense pain that I draw closest to Jesus and I realize how much he has actually forgiven me, and as I see forgiveness play out in my life, I realize that with each experience with it, it's humbled me. Actually, I realize that anyone, even myself, is capable of anything if, if Jesus is not allowed in the heart, God sees all the pain that's been inflicted behind closed walls and he doesn't forget us. Our names are inscribed on the palms of his hands and our walls are continually before him, as Isaiah says, and there's a song, a song that I encourage you to sing whenever you think about this topic of bitterness. It gives me great strength, and it's called great is thy faithfulness. There's a verse in there that says there's no shadow of turning and that the Lord doesn't change and his compassions don't fail. God has never failed me and he will never fail you. He will always answer the sincere prayer of someone asking for bitterness to be uprooted. That is a hundred percent guaranteed. He cannot resist answering that prayer. He's done it for me a thousand times and he'll do it for you too. As you heard Christie's story, maybe it has reminded you of a time when God helped you to forgive. If you would like to share your story with us, please write to us at renew@startingwithjesus.com. We wanna hear your stories of how God gave you the victory. Here's this week's challenge. We want you to take time to write a song about the coming of Jesus in the same way David wrote Psalm 68, in a joyful anticipation of the arc of the covenant coming to Jerusalem, we want you to write a song that reflects your feelings of joyful anticipation of Jesus coming back to take us home with him. Thank you for joining me today as we looked at another story in the life of David. If you wanna keep digging deeper into our story today, check out the extra Bible study helps in notes@startingwithjesus.com slash renew. Before we go, let's close in prayer. Dear you, heavenly Father, thank you for helping us to learn today about choosing to make the choice to forgive. We know how it feels when you forgive us for our mistakes. Now we ask that you would please help us to give that blessing of forgiveness to others as well. We pray this in your name, amen. This podcast is sponsored by starting with Jesus. To find out more about other programs or to find out the links that were shared in this podcast, just check out the description box below.

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Reflect and Renew January 2023

King at Last

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The Last Days of Saul

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