“They divided them impartially by drawing lots, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among the descendants of both Eleazar and Ithamar.”
~ 1 Chronicles 24:5
Hi James and Ellen,
You have to make decisions every day. You have to make choices every day. It is not hard to decide in the morning what to eat. It should not be hard each day to choose what clothes to wear. When a decision affects just your grandpaa, your grandpaa does not find it hard to make the decision. It is more difficult for your grandpaa to make a decision if the decision that your grandpaa is to make will affect your grandmaa. More often than not the decisions and the choices that you make do affect other people. How can you know that you have made the right decision or the right choice? If you ask God’s guidance in making a decision or in making a choice, you will make the right decision or the right choice. Do you need to ask for God’s guidance every morning regarding what to eat? Do you need God’s guidance every day regarding what clothes to wear that day? You can. God would not mind. Paul told Timothy in the second letter that he sent to Timothy that God has given you a sound mind. God has given you minds to make good decisions and good choices. There are times though when you can let God make a decision or a choice for you. Do you remember your grandpaa telling you that he is planning to study through the Bible by writing a devotional on each chapter in the Bible and sending these devotionals to you? Your grandpaa printed each chapter of the Bible on legal size sheets of paper. Your grandmaa cut these sheets of paper into small slips of paper with one chapter of the Bible on each slip of paper. All these slips of paper are now in a plastic ice cream container. Your grandpaa – before your grandmaa draws out a slip, will shake this plastic container to continue to mix up these small slips of paper. Your grandpaa was given a CD which has the NIV Bible on it along with four other Bible study helps – including a concordance. Your grandpaa prints out each time the chapter in the Bible that is on the slip that your grandmaa has taken out of the plastic container. Your grandpaa will also print out what the concordance says about the chapter in the Bible that’s on the slip of paper. Your grandpaa will do this right after your grandmaa takes a slip of paper with a chapter on it from out of the plastic container. Your grandpaa is letting God choose the chapter in the Bible for him to write the devotional. Your grandpaa looks forward each day writing these devotionals.
Do you know what drawing slips of paper out of something is called – such as what your grandmaa is doing for your grandpaa? It is called drawing lots. People drew lots in the Bible. Your grandpaa has used drawing lots in some of the things that your grandpaa has done in ministry. When it came time to schedule the different practical ministry activities, your grandpaa would put the names of each student in some kind of bowl. The guy whose name was on the slip of paper that your grandpaa picked out of the bowl would either be the guy who would lead the devotional time or the guy who would give the devotional for one day. Your grandpaa would do the same thing to find out what guy would lead church meetings, what guy would preach and what guy would teach. Your grandpaa also will put each summer team participants’ names on slips of paper before putting the slips of paper in a bowl. Your grandpaa will pick out two names at a time. These two summer team participants are to pray together each day for three or four days. Your grandpaa will then after three or four days do the same thing again. When your grandpaa draws out a slip of paper with a name on it, your grandpaa is drawing a lot. Instead of your grandpaa deciding, your grandpaa is letting God decide who will do what. It would be silly to write the names of different kinds of food on slips of paper that you put into a container and then the next morning eat the food which is written on the slip of paper that you drew out of the container. It would also be silly to do this with the clothes that you wear each day.
Do you remember who David was? David was a king over the Israelite people group. As the Israelite people group king, David decided what enemy to fight against. David conquered Jerusalem in order to make Jerusalem his home. David made worshipping God the most important thing that he did in his life. After David had defeated the Israelite people group’s enemies, David decided that it was time to bring back order in the temple. When God had Moses make the ark of the covenant, the Levite guys were the ones who God chose to take care of everything related to where God would have His presence. It seems that the Levite guys had not been keeping up with what they had been tasked to do. There does not seem to be any order in the temple. David per 1 Chronicles 24 got together with two guys from two different Levite families. These guys were descendants of Aaron. Aaron was Moses’ older bro. Aaron was a Levite. Aaron was the first chief high priest. David wanted the Levites to get back to the ministries that they were supposed to be doing. As David talked with the two guys – Zadok and Ahimelech, David figured out how many families that there were in the two guys extended families. There were twenty-four guys who were the heads of the two extended families. David wanted to do fairly what he needed to do. Because Zadok’s extended family was larger than Ahimelech’s extended family, there were more family names from his extended family to choose from to do all the tasks that needed to be done. What did David do next with Zadok and Ahimielech? Verse 5 says “They divided them impartially by drawing lots, for there were officials of the sanctuary and officials of God among the descendants of both Eleazar and Ithamar.” David is someone who would use lots to choose people to do particular tasks. When you give God the chance to guide you in making a decision or in making a choice, you will know that you are in God’s perfect will. When you know that you are in God’s perfect will, your lives will be filled with peace.
1 Chronicles 24 (51)