In reading through the bible one cannot get very far without becoming frustrated with the "people of God". It becomes very easy to read their story and become critical of their "thin" consistency, it at times can be almost laughable (if it were funny) to sit and read a time when they are living in the thick of their resolution to God only to know that a time of spiritual famine is around the corner. I believe that for us to sit and read the story of the "chosen ones of Israel" is an insight into heavenly realms itself, a small viewing not of the lives of ancestors many times removed but of people on the other side of the reflective glass.
To read of their swaying back and forth and become critical I believe can be a pride that we ourselves should heavily guard against because it is not them we read about, it is not their inability to maintain their resolutions, it is not their wavering...it is our own. An honest heart reads their account not to feel better that we are not so hard hearted as to reject the immediate presence of God, but rather to see the ever presence of that God. A God that though rejected does not reject, that though reviled does not revile a God that in the very depths of our faithlessness displays His vast faithfulness.
How easy it can become to sit back and consider the lives of everyone else: the failings the shortcomings, the disappointments; all the while completely missing what is glaring back at us in the mirror. As I sit and read these stories over and over I am more and more overwhelmed not so much in the failings of God's people (though that is real), but in the never failing, never moving, never forsaking nature of God.
We are living in times (not unlike times of old dating back to the times of Christ and before) where it can become very easy to read the stories of everyone else's lives just to make us feel somehow elevated thinking, "at least I am not like that publican". Our greatest challenge is not to see the failings of others (that's too easy), but rather to experience the completion that comes from acknowledging our own faults and therefore our need for God.
New years resolutions or not we do know that God is God and the sooner we get out of His way the sooner we will experience the vastness of His presence in our lives.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Getting out of God's way! It's an Idea older than the children of Israel and yet we seem not to want to heed it. Well, I guess the reason may well be as you said we're so busy pointing at others "imperfections" that we fail to follow God's will in our life. We need to quit beating up on God and instead spend our (my) time, which is His time following the Way to the Promise land.
GREAT thoughts again Shane. I have always loved reading the Old Testament accounts. I loved reading of the faithful lives of God's servants being the lone voice crying in the wilderness. I also have lingered in the historical recordings because I too see myself. The greatest thing is that I see my God loving His people.
Thank you & God Speed.
Post a Comment