Edward’s QT, 2 Samuel 6: 12-23, 26 May 2026.
Passage summary: After three months of prayerfully considering how he had tried to bring the ark to Jerusalem, David goes to Obed-Edom’s house and retrieves it. He joyfully dances all the way to Jerusalem with songs and sacrifices. His wife Michal mocks him for his behavior. He gives gifts of bread, figs, and raisins to all the people.
Question: Have I rejoiced before the Lord?
Like David, I was initially fearful of the Lord when he called me. Although I believed in God, I did not want Jesus in my life because I knew he would make demands on my selfishness. I wanted to be free to believe but not worship or serve the Lord. God had other ideas and hounded me until I said out loud that Jesus was my Lord and Savior.
The moment of my conversion is worth repeating. On a cold, January night in Ottawa, Canada, I got into my old car to go to an appointment. The transmission of the car didn’t like to go into Drive in the cold. I had learned to first put it into Reverse and then Drive to trick it. That night, it wouldn’t be tricked. I recognized that after months of God preparing me, the moment of truth had arrived. I could go backwards forever but unless I accepted Jesus, I was not going to go forward, not to my appointment and not in my life. With angry reluctance, I accepted. The car went into gear and I’ve been zigzagging my way to God ever since.
After my acceptance of Jesus in my life, everything changed except my circumstances. My hardship and poverty remained for a few years more. I still sold my blood to buy food for my family. But, and it’s a huge but, I felt that life radiated with joy and God’s glory. I joined a church and had my children baptized. We grew up together, praising the Lord.
When I lost my focus in the last years of my first marriage, God invited me into a catastrophe I could not handle where I lost my pension money, my wife to alcoholism, my self-righteousness to adultery and my arrogance to job loss.
God sent me to Korea to recover. Here I found a beloved second wife and the Wooridle church community. Through the vicissitudes of remarriage, my wife and I faced our hardships through the community most of the time. It wasn’t easy. We held onto God in worship and mokjang, as we still do. It’s been a kind of dance with many missteps but more and more rejoicing because we’re still dancing together by God’s grace. In serving others, we find not only more of God’s glory but more of our own salvation being worked out.
Application: Persevere in rejoicing before the Lord.
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for loving us enough to call us to faith and to repent into rejoicing.
