March 28th, 2012, 5:00 AM
I lay in bed this morning thinking about the need to be thankful. I thought about the Old Testament sacrifices and their connection to the giving of thanks to GOD. I recalled how GOD struggled so with His people, after bringing them out of generations of captivity as slaves in Egypt, to get them to be a thankful people. Weren't their four decades of desert wanderings meant to get slavery out of the hearts and minds in order to restore them to believing, thinking and living as the children of GOD?
I wondered why so few couldn't or wouldn't make this transition. Why couldn't they make the move from captivity to freedom? After all GOD had done to get them out of slavery, why wouldn't they trust HIM to get slavery out of them? Why did they so often seem to have one eye back on Egypt, and seem so ready to turn around and go back to where GOD rescued them from? Why couldn't, wouldn't they see the indescribable work of grace and strength GOD exercised to set them free? Why does it seem that so few ever made the leap from discontent and resentment, to authentic, heartfelt, unshakeable, deep-down, desert-surviving, GOD-honoring, authentic thanksgiving? Maybe they couldn't see the big picture. Maybe they couldn't look ahead to what GOD was doing because they were so preoccupied with the looking back.
I remember a time when I would go out of my way to walk by a mirror, now I try hard to avoid them. The older I get (now 56) the less impressed I am by what a mirror reflects back to me. Well over their forty years, on my own spiritual journey, trying to follow where GOD is leading, (made obvious by the miles long set of heel-shaped furrows in the sand), and I don't have to right either. Oh, how I hate mirrors. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who the dumbest guy of all..."
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