Lodebar – Unexpected and suspicious grace
When I was five years old, my mother was too obsessed with finding bargains the day after Christmas to realize that I had fallen behind. We were visiting the great city of El Paso, Texas, where there was, in the middle of downtown, a huge park with an alligator pool as its main attraction. I called it Alligator Park and those creatures fascinated me. So, finding myself lost in the store, I found my way to Alligator Park and sat on a bench watching people rush past me on their way to work or the shops. I remember feeling so lost. If only a kind lady would smile at me as she passed by; but no one did. At five years old, I knew how Lodebar felt.
Lo-Debar (Lodebar) was a royal place during the reign of King Saul and later King David. Mephibosheth, son of Prince Jonathan and grandson of King Saul, was five years old when his father and his grandfather fell at the battle of Mount Gilboa. The nurse of the child, learning of this calamity, fled with the child from Gibeah, the royal residence, and stumbled. Due to him dropping the child on the ground, Mephibosheth was permanently paralyzed from the trash down. He was taken to the land of Gilead, where he and the nurse found refuge in Machir’s house at Lo-Debar (Lodebar).
Lodebar was a gloomy place with no grass, no hope, utter desolation.
You ended up in Lodebar when you were crushed by the storms of life and believed that life was over for you.
Perhaps my love for this story has a lot to do with being repeatedly told that I was the shame of my pastor-father’s church. When one feels ashamed from the first memory, he establishes beliefs of worthlessness, as well as feelings of fear and insecurity that must be fought and conquered much later in life. It makes you hide from life, either through passive behavior or overcompensating behavior.
I can imagine this five-year-old’s nanny telling him that they would surely be killed if the new King David found out they were alive. I can hear her telling Mephibosheth: This is King David’s fault that you are like this. You know what would have happened to you after your grandfather died. They would have killed you because it is the custom! If I hadn’t run with you, you’d be dead, and if I hadn’t been so scared, I wouldn’t have dropped you. It’s David’s fault you’re crippled, but better crippled than dead.
Some years later, when King David had subdued all of Israel’s adversaries, he began to think about the family of Jonathan, his best friend with whom he had made a pact. David had made a pact with Jonathan that when he became king he would never stop being kind to Jonathan’s family. So he asked his advisers if there was anyone left from Saul’s (and Jonathan’s) house whom he could harm. Hears he took the initiative to search for Jonathan’s relatives who might still be alive. The only thing that occurred to his advisers was that there was a crippled boy, Jonathan’s son, who was hiding in the desolate place. David told them to find this child and bring him immediately.
Now I can imagine what was going through Mephibosheth’s mind when the King’s men came to his door and told him that King David was calling for him. Think of all he had been told by this nurse to whom he had entrusted his life. She had lived in fear of David since he was five years old! I guess Mephibosheth thought this was the end for him. He would die.
But what choice did he have? Surrounded by these representatives of the King, he had no choice but to proceed with them. Little did he know that what brought him out of hiding was grace, the grace of King David’s absolute authority.
Now go ahead. Imagine Mephibosheth sitting at the King’s table! She looks like royalty; smells like royalty; talk like royalty; and with her crippled legs under the King’s Table, she appears to be royalty to everyone else at court!
Each of us has experienced his own Lodebar. Some hide because of the shame of divorce, abuse, or financial disaster. But everyone has been to Lodebar. And it is only the benevolent grace of the Almighty King of Kings, Jesus Christ, that can bring us out of hiding. Sometimes the shame we feel or believe is nothing more than a lie we have believed. Someone fed us the lie and for some reason we believed it.
Even those who seem to have everything this fallen world values can lose themselves in Lodebar. They are lost. They need a Savior, a King, who will take the initiative to bring them out of their perdition. His name of his is Jesus, The Name above all names, and He offers redemption to all the residences of Lodebar!
Sometimes who knows Christ as Redeemer and Savior can visit a psychological Lodebar. The duration of the visit and the desolation depends on how intimately they know God and his sovereignty.
A husband betrays his wife after thirty years of marriage and everything she thought was her life is now gone. Who is she now? Was all Christian marriage one big sham? Where can she go? Every place they shared is awkward. Even friends are now distant, awkward and suspicious. Trapped in Lodebar, she cries out to God: Is this how your daughter should live? People look at her with that question in their eyes: What did YOU do to break up your marriage?
Creedence Clearwater Revival had a hit song, Lodi in 1964. Although not as deep as being spiritually lost, John Fogerty gave a miniature view of being lost and trapped, both literally and metaphorically. So this is not a foreign concept, even to those who don’t know Jesus. It’s no fun being stuck in any way.
Even at five years old, he knew what it was like to feel trapped and lost. It was the first of many times, and God has graced me with it in the most unusual and unexpected ways. I suspect I will feel the pull to Lodebar again and again before I meet Jesus face to face; but each time I visit it is a shorter visit than the time before. It’s not because of who I am, but because of who I am that makes all the difference. He knows the way out of Lodebar and I know the way to Him!
©2008 April Lorier
Sources:
I Samuel and II Samuel, Old Testament
Covenant between David and Jonathan: I Samuel 18, 20, 23
http://www.biblestudytools.net/Dictionaries/SmithsBibleDictionary/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Jonathan