Another action-packed section! I have always adored the books of Samuel from start to finish.

But Judges and Ruth don't get enough attention. Today began with the exciting birth of Samson. Who didn't love him? Huge tough guy, does whatever the freak he wants, mostly to his detriment, including his constant problems with women and gullibility. Later on, there's basically a replay from the much earlier scene of Sodom, but here there's no angel to come to the rescue and a woman gets raped to death. And it starts a war, with one of the tribes nearly being wiped to extinction. Judges ends with the funniest ways of getting a wife that is ever found in the Bible; just find one in the garden at the dance party and grab her and run off with her. Bam, WIFE!

Ruth is a beautiful story of pan and loss, hard times and hard work, redemption and love. I adore the people God chose to be the bloodlines of His Son. In Ruth, God uses the love story of an old man and a widowed woman with probably few prospects if any of marrying again, who go on to become the great grandparents of King David(the same David who slew Goliath).

Next we have a barren woman begging God and praying fervently for a child, and the priest shouting at her thinking she's drunk in the temple because her heart was praying and her lips were moving but no sound was being made.

The saddest verse of the day sums up a lot of Samuel and the nations problems: "And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected ME, that I should not be King over them."

ALL of the problems on the planet stem from this one verse. The sin, the suffering, the pain and death. To all who choose to be separate from God being King on the throne of our life.