"Lo"

 

“I wonder how much I weigh?”  My daughter said.

“The scale’s right there,” I said.  “Have at it.”

Somehow, ten-year olds have less trepidation stepping on a scale than those of us who can look at a picture of brownie and somehow gain half a pound.  Something changes in the human metabolism around age 30 and things are never quite the same.

“That’s weird,” Victoria said.

“What?”  I asked.  “Are you gaining weight?”

“No,” she answered.  “At least I don’t think so.  The scale just says, ‘Lo.’”

“Sounds like our scale has gotten judgmental,” I said.  I stepped on the scale myself, just to see how it would respond to my larger size.  Once again, the fatal word showed up, ‘Lo!’

“I guess the scale thinks we are malnourished,” I said.  “Double portions of dessert tonight for supper for everyone!”

“It’s just saying that the batteries need to be changed in the scale,” Elaine put in. 

“Back in my day,” I said.  “Scales didn’t have batteries in them.  They had a dial and you stepped on them and the dial went up to whatever number your weight was.  That is, except for the scale at my mom’s office – that one had weights and you had to adjust them up or down to see how much people weighed.  We probably need a scale like that.”

"I think we can just change the batteries in the scale and it will be fine," my beautiful wife put in.

And she was right.

As I thought about our scale, I came to the conclusion that this sort of scale would be exactly what most people want.  Much like the evil queen in snow white wanted a mirror that claimed she was the "fairest of them all," we don’t really want a scale to tell us how much weigh – we want a scale that tells us that we look great.

It is exactly this sort of thing that people look for in prophets.  King Ahab went to his prophets to ask advice about whether he should go to war.  400 prophets showed up and with one voice told the king exactly what he wanted to hear.   Israel would win a decisive and brilliant victory.

King Jehosophat seems to have wondered a bit at these prophets and asked if there wasn’t another one around who was a prophet of the Lord.  “The king of Israel [King Ahab] answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.” (I Kings 22:8)

The prophet, Micaiah, did contradict all four hundred of the other prophets.  He predicted Ahab’s death and Israel’s defeat – much to the scorn of the other prophets there.

Four hundred to one the yes-men outnumbered him and in the end, Ahab and Jehosophat went off to war together.  In the fierceness of the battle, an unnamed archer shot King Ahab in the joints of his armor. He propped himself in his chariot, watching his forces suffer defeat and there, in his chariot, he bled out and died.

We want prophets to show us an easier way – men and women who will tell us that the hard things of the Gospel aren’t really needed.  Jesus may have “talked” about giving up all to enter the kingdom, but He really meant that we need to pray and read our Bible and like a few things on Facebook and in return He will reward us with all the material things we could dream of.

Somehow, when I read the Gospels I find a different message.  I find a narrow road -- one that requires giving up all to enter and one that requires total surrender to follow.

We need prophets who tell the truth – people who speak truth into our lives, even when that truth hurts.  For, we need scales that tell us honestly how much we weigh, even if we would rather simply have one that simply reads, ‘Lo.’