Waved farewell to Tim today as he goes off to the grim Northern border again only to find that he's left his wallet behind like a numpty. Very tempted to see if I could use his ID to sign him up to a Matt Damon/Will Young lookalike agency... Onto business then
Today's readings
Exodus 23:1-24:18
Mark 3:31-4:29
Psalm 22:22-31
Exodus is more and more confusing as we get lots more laws which are still mostly relevant to the Israelites at the time. But let's look at what there is. A lot of what is in chapter 23 makes sense. There's laws on lying, gossiping and generally having some integrity. There's also a lot of religious laws and I think these were given by God for a specific reason. God was pulling his country together as they had nothing uniting them apart from the fear of Egypt and slavery. Then we get God's side of the deal because He wants to help us and He promises to protect the Israelites until they reach Canaan. And sure enough, it takes a fair amount of time but God doesn't break His promise.
We get a pretty confusing next chapter too. Moses scattering blood over the people is a bit odd and it just made me think that even the really holy people don't get God completely. He's so vast and mysterious that when people claim to understand Him or know Him completely or even to have disproven Him I know they're mistaken because He's too big for humanity to fully grasp unless they all follow His will. The meeting God has with Moses again is something that we can believe is true or symbolic but either way, not truly grasp the mystery and powerful nature of our God and His potential for miracles. God stuff can be weird and unbelievable and often that stuff is the best because it's so much from God and not from this world. If you feel like God has called you to do something or you haven't been sure if an emotion you had was God because of weirdness or unlikeliness then don't dismiss it outright. If it matches with God's character and teachings then who's to say what God can and can't do?
Into the New Testament we maneuver and Jesus is backing up His father's intentions of uniting people as one great big family. Whereas God was giving people guidelines and boundaries to keep them together, Jesus is instead inviting anyone who follows Him to regard Him as family. That's just amazing and something I don't appreciate often enough. He then teaches some parables we've already visited but they tell us of how God's truth and God's kingdom grow and spread. What I find interesting is that there's a mysterious element to it. Jesus uses the example of seed and no farmer can predict which individual seed will do what. Just like God being so big He's a mystery, sometimes the universe can be slightly too random for even the biggest brain and that's where God is working. Developing the mysterious and the unbelievable.
Finally we're back to our Psalm and David is once again doing his about turn of praise. He keeps complaining but then seeing God's glory regardless and I love the last verse. God does what He says. How fantastic that promise is. If we're believing in Him then we have eternal life to come because He says so.
Today's readings to me are about just how mind boggling God can be and how if we're not careful we can get hung up trying to understand, unwravel or even believe and prove that God is there. Instead we're shown that God will do His part. He will honour His promise to us of eternal life. He will give us strength and wisdom if we rely on Him. But God isn't a puzzle you can solve. He's a massive and amazing God who we are so lucky to have loving us.
And that's your lot for today. Yesterday's song is here. Questions, criticisms and feedback welcome as always,
Jon
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