Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

• Exodus 3:14

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

• John 14:6-7

Caleb’s concubine Maakah was the mother of Sheber and Tirhanah.  She also gave birth to Shaaph the father of Madmannah and to Sheva the father of Makbenah and Gibea.  Caleb’s daughter was Aksah.  These were the descendants of Caleb.

• 1 Chronicles 2:48-50

God identified Himself as the “I am.”  Jesus made a multitude of “I am” statements to state that He was and is the Son of God.

Since early in 2018, Dave Peever of Live 4 Him has written a series of “I am” posts, many in the summer of 2019.  He compares himself to a variety of Biblical characters, and even a few inanimate objects, I think.  He has been good characters and bad characters.  He has been Paul, Gideon, and Jonah.  He has been Judas, Ananias and Sapphira, and Barabbas.  He has even been Balaam’s Donkey.  And these seven examples barely scratch the surface. Other writers have also compared themselves as Biblical characters.

It is a good thing that we make such comparisons.  For all the good and bad that those people did, that stuff recorded in Scripture, it is in God’s Word so that we can relate to it.  That is one of the reasons that we should reread the Bible.  Each time you read it, you might be in a different season of your life.  You may not relate to one character, but you will relate to another.  You can learn from their mistakes.  You can follow in their footsteps to victory.

For most of my life, I identified with Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, due to the sadness and uphill struggle that I faced, but Jeremiah did not weep as much as people think.  He was given a message from God, many.times over, to deliver to a king that did not want to hear it.  Jeremiah was placed in chains.  He was placed in a cistern.  He was persecuted because the king preferred his yes-men and he hated what Jeremiah had to say.  In many ways, I can relate to that description, but when you have had sadness and frustration in your life simply because you are weird, an odd duck, and a rebel (of sorts), you may not be persecuted for righteousness’ sake, just for being strange.

I have in later years thought I was Jonah, running away from the task God had assigned me, but I doubt if I would have been angry if I had convinced an enemy army to put down their weapons and worship God.  I may have held onto anger in my heart far too long, but I am willing to forgive, especially if the other person has repented and I no longer must duck the punches thrown in my direction.

I have thought at times of being like John the Baptist (or Baptizer).  You know, that voice in the wilderness calling for all to prepare the way of the Lord.  But a diet of locusts and wild honey does not seem appealing.

I have lived the life of Joseph.  I was never a slave or a prisoner, but I have been trapped in a situation where I never got a promotion, more than once, but the boss realized that I could manage the department, maybe better than he could, while he did other things.  Once, when we were short-handed while our scope expanded, several departments at the same time.  Joseph managed Potiphar’s home until Potiphar’s wife got frisky.  Joseph managed the prison and when he asked Pharoah’s cupbearer to remember him, Joseph was forgotten (Genesis 40).  In each case where I managed the department and my boss moved on, usually to a promotion and better things, I was forgotten, and I never got the chance of interpreting Pharoah’s dream.  I remained forgotten.

So, I wonder.  Each of these Biblical characters had some similarity with my life at various times, but at the same time, there were aspects that did not mesh at all.

So, I have decided that “I am Makbenah.”  I think it is pronounced “mock- bean-nuh” or “mock-bay-nuh,” and of my two references on “All the men in the Bible” one does not list Makbenah (nor Machbenah) while the other has no known meaning for the name.  He was the grandson, by way of a concubine, of Caleb.  His name is mentioned once in the Bible, in 1 Chronicles 2:49, in the Scripture above.

Caleb was a descendant of Judah and the Judah representative in the first spies that went into the Promised Land.  He brought back good news and told the Israelites that they could trust God and take the land, but the people rebelled.  Caleb and Joshua, another of those spies, were the only two Israelites to enter the Promised Land after the wandering of forty years in the wilderness.

Yet, Makbenah is only mentioned once, in this one verse, and that’s all we know of him.

We know nothing about Makbenah except for one thing.  He made it into the Book!!!!

Sure, there are people like Judas Iscariot, Ananias and Sapphira, Barabbas, Jezebel, and many others who are in the Book, and they were not so nice of people.  This does not mean that they will have a reward in Heaven.

But if you are in God’s Book of Life, if you are “in the Book,” you will live with Jesus forever.

Like Makbenah was “in the Book” (the Bible), I praise God that He chose me to be “in the Book.”

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.