Our family has four boys between the ages of 6-15…. it’s never dull. I am famous for telling everyone that occasionally I walk around the house yelling NO and STOP IT just to be proactive. As you might imagine, we often get passionate arguments about who did what (and when and how). There are times where everyone sounds believable, and there are times where no one sounds believable. The latter arguments usually result in me announcing that everyone is grounded forever or until I am through being irritated.

It doesn’t always work when trying to figure out what happened, but one of the things I tend to rely upon is the person who can give me more (and better) details. The more details I have, the better I can understand what most likely happened, and the more I am able to figure out what questions to ask. More details allow me to start seeing the situation as if I was there.

Today’s passage had a lot of details and some of them were really challenging for me as I tried to see what God was doing or saying. I read about an ax head floating in the water. I wondered what in the world does that mean? There may exist imagery and metaphors that I don’t understand from a cultural perspective. However, one interesting aspect is a bit more on the surface. In the Bible, there are lots of places where we get a stunning amount of details. In this passage we see something about an ax head floating. We hear specific details of the famine that are very sickening on both a moral and a physical level. We can begin to see and feel what it was like in that moment. Naturally God’s word encourages us or leads us. However, the details also help me in moments when I have doubts—there is a lot of detail in the Bible about many things. Through specific details I see how God cares, but it also helps me see that what I read is trustworthy. So, there are times where I wonder what it means when people are buying a donkey’s head for food, but even if I miss that point, I can see the details of what was happening and be encouraged in the reality of those details and the GOD within them.