Just as the Israelites wandered through the wilderness for forty years, it seems that I have yet some time to wander too…
I have been thinking about timing. Everything happens in its own good time, which is just another way to say that everything happens in God’s own time.
And I have been thinking about that especially in light of the timing of the Birth (and Passion and Death) of Christ. I have – like so many others – heard it asked, “Why did God chose that point in time to enter the world in a physical way?” “Why two thousand years ago?” “Why specifically to the Jewish People?” “Why did He chose to come to a very small minority group and why then and why in that way?”
And I have been reflecting on that very much over the last few days and weeks. And it seems to me that God did this so that He would be recognised. You see, God prepared a people for Himself. He prepared the Jewish people as His chosen people. That meant that He sent them prophets like Elijah and Elisha and Moses. He sent them trials, like their bondage in Egypt as slaves of the Pharoah. He sent them miracles, like the parting of the Red Sea, when they left Egypt as He wished to allow them to escape Pharaoh. And He sent them tests, like their Exodus in the desert, wandering for forty years in the desert to reach a destination that should have taken them only forty days to reach.
And I have been reflecting on what that preparation actually meant for those chosen people of God… And I feel that it was a preparation so that they would recognise God Himself when He came to walk among them.
You see, I have heard it said that God is in each of us. He is carried inside my soul as I am a Temple of the Holy Spirit and being a Child of God, God is inside me – and He is inside each one of you too. And that means that when someone cuts in front of me with their car, or swears at me in the supermarket, or thinks that I am annoying when I order my lunch at the counter, they are doing all of these things directly to God Himself. And that means that when I do all of these things to others, I am doing them to God Himself too.
And what does that mean? Would I do that to God in Heaven, if I looked Him straight in the eye? Of course not. I would be overwhelmed at His majesty. But because I fail to recognise Him in my neighbours, I insult and slander Him most unjustly.
And I have been thinking about that today. Because it seems to me that just as God prepared His chosen people to recognise Him when He entered time and space to redeem humanity, He is preparing me today to recognise Him in eternity, when I leave time and space and enter eternal life.
And just as the Israelites wandered through the wilderness for forty years, it seems that I have yet some time to wander too…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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