Na1 This morning was a funny one. While trying to construct something out of this woe-filled war poetry I had just scribbled that the night of these minor prophets is darkest before the NT dawn, and Jeff approached me at Camden Lock. Asking for money he offered that Ps52 'Darkness has been my closest friend' was a verse close to his heart. (maybe 42v3?) This darkness (v4), even as the consequence of general brokenness, drunkenness v10 and misdirection, if not the darkness of explicit judgement, is the experience of so many so much of the time. God, I want to see Jeff again, to speak v7 refuge and v15 peace feasts. I want to be good news. Hear our prayers.
Na2 Initially confused by this passage who it is to and what causal links are being made and why, then struggling with the violent images, unsure how to let them shape our day. The esv tells us Nahum speaks this to Ninevah with sarcasm, I don't know how much this helps... Oh but I want Jesus to break the barriers that keep me from him, those I don't even know about and those I do. Jesus, please hear our fumbled prayers and break in upon with force. I pray that you are powerful against that which comes to rob steal and destroy, commiting to you particularly this morning, your servants R and T. Please Lord God, undo strongholds and overcome darkness. We think of Jeff, please overcome his darkness with your light.
Na2v11 “Where is the lions' den, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lions and lioness went, where his cubs were, with none to disturb? The lion tore enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses; he filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh” .. went far beyond need and built silos for himself thinking 'I am safe' “Fool! This very night” getaheadofthegames.com, but these are not games. v13 “I will cut off your prey from the earth” … If only the earth could be cut off from their (our) prey.
Na3 v7 Who will grieve? As Pure's ungrieved (ungrievable?) death of a prostitute, there is no love lost in the market economy, no bond, no affection, no kissing, no grief. We who live by the sordid, die by the sordid, alone, in the comfort of our graceless compartmentalised monetised ways. .. v15 Multiply, as Gn1v28 Ps127v5. Here invoked sarcastically, but Nahum assumes a principle of numbers in a context of spiritual war that we forget. See v16 know that the enemy, his bankers and civil servants are looking to multiply. You cannot stand still, the Kingdom cannot be sleepwalked into v18. As John Peters will tell us apocalyptically, evangelism would do well to be motivated by basic self-interest in the face of the illegalisation of Christianity in the UK. Do not allow your zeal to be contracepted by naïve non-violence, by irresistant passive resistance which is passivity. .. Remembering Na1v7, God make me bold.
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