Friday, January 20, 2012

Perfumed wheat, bloody fingers and The Golden Girls

Leviticus 2-4
Let’s do something.  Try and erase from your heart and mind all knowledge of God.  Now imagine that I tell you that there is a Being who is all-knowing, all-powerful and present in all places simultaneously.  That this Being has and will always exist, that He has made everything that is and that the entire universe is under His authority.  Lastly, He makes all the rules and when we break any of them, we offend Him personally and when we keep them, we bring Him personal joy. 

Your first reaction would be “I don’t believe that!!!”  But if I insisted you might say, “OK, prove it!!!”   Now for the sake of this story let’s say we are at Panama City Beach, FL and I say “ok, I’ll prove it.”  I turn toward the Gulf and say, “Being, divide the Gulf of Mexico” and it actually divides in half so that you can walk to Galveston, TX on dry land if you chose.  Here would probably be your next thoughts;

I am afraid of this Being!
How do I get Him on my side?
How do I keep from making Him mad at me, personally?

That is where we find the Children of Israel in today’s reading.  God is beginning to teach them who He is, what He is and the first baby steps on how to relate to Him. 

Now let’s not jump ahead theologically, to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Let’s stay in the early stages of the covenant relationship ordained by God to the great ancients of old.  It takes some time to come to grips with the idea of God, much less Him personally.  I for one would have been sacrificing everything in sight just to say;

“Thank you for being a friend,
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true You’re a pal and a confidant

And if You threw a party
Invited everyone You knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND!”

No comments:

Post a Comment