Jason Locke's Blog

Here's a short meditation on Lamentations 5:19-22: It's good to praise God and to remember his love. This is especially easy when we experience the majesty and wonder of creation. It's also equally simple when you can witness the deliverance of God, either first-hand or through the stories of those who lived it. For example, Psalm 136 is a hymn of hope. In it, the psalmist tells the history of creation and redemption—how God made the heavens and the earth, and how God redeemed his people from slavery and brought them to a good and prosperous land. After each affirmation in this psalm (26 times), we hear the same refrain, "For his steadfast love endures forever." But can you testify to the goodness of God's love when your world has collapsed and when your enemies are having their way with you? Can you sing the praises of God's enduring love when it feels as if God is looking the other way? How can you declare, "God's love endures forev...

Have you ever needed a witness? Picture the worst kind of rush-hour traffic that you can imagine. Cars on the freeway. Stop and go. Maddening slowdowns and sudden stops. The daily negotiation of gridlock like this requires a huge dose of patience and skill. Even then things sometimes happen. And when it does, you might need a witness. My friend Martina was driving in this kind of big-city traffic. Cars would stop for a while and then slowly inch forward. At one point when traffic stopped, the car in front of Martina suddenly threw it into reverse and smashed backwards into Martina's car. He jumped out, grabbed his neck and was going to claim that Martina had rear-ended him. Can you imagine how Martina was going to defend herself? Who would believe that this driver had backed into her when read-end collisions are so common in stop-and-go traffic? Martina needed a witness! As soon as she realized what was happening, she bravely jumped out into traffic and flagged dow...

2 Kings 6:8-23 tells the great story of blindness and sight. It's a story of how blind we can be to the fiery host of heaven that surrounds us in our hour of need, of how we need the Lord to open our eyes to see his power and might. It's also a story of how God is able to blind the eyes of the enemy, leading them right into the hands of God’s people. There are two layers of blindness and sight in this tale. First, there is Elisha's servant. He is terrified when the Syrian army comes and surrounds Elisha’s village. They've come for Elisha, and there appears to be no hope of escape. This unnamed servant can only see the enemy, and it’s a terrifying sight! But he is blind to a bigger reality. The host of heaven is there to protect them, ready to strike down this conquering force. The hills are full of horses and chariots of fire. Elisha prays, "O Lord, open his eyes that he may see." When he sees, his sense of reality is completely transformed. Sec...

In our moments of greatest need, we reveal what lies beneath outward appearances. For those who are empty on the inside, times of crisis can reveal a bankruptcy of character. For those who are filled with the wrong things, catastrophe tends to unearth wrongheaded priorities and misplaced frenzy. But in those who have been filled with the love and grace of God, we can see a calm strength that seems out of place in a world that values hysteria. King Ahaziah, son of Ahab & Jezebel, reigned slightly more than a year. The narrators of 1 & 2 Kings don't tell us much about him, except that he walked in the evil ways of his parents and of the founding north Israelite king Jeroboam. Ahaziah is an unimportant figure in the annals of history. His failure to trust in God, however, is the perfect canvas for the narrators to close out the prophetic work of Elijah. In Ahaziah's dumb and futile desperation, we see a clash of powers and priorities, and we discover the outcome...