For what seems like thousands of years, God walked along with the Hebrew people, offering them covenants, wiping out their enemies, dwelling inside their temples, choosing their judges and kings, chastising them, sending prophets to them, punishing them, and then, finally, making Himself flesh amongst them. Since then - bumpkis.
It is a challenge of my faith to accept that God is active in my life in a way that is as meaningful as it was to, say, the average Jewish citizen during the Exodus, because I can not see God, can not hear God, can not feel God, and don't get to see God wipe out the entire Egyptian army. Perhaps its my love of big budget movies, but where are the Special Effects? Where are the plagues? Where is the speaking of tongues, the flames over peoples heads, the prophet who rises up and tells us to repent?
Or am I just not listening? Am I just not seeing? Is our media coverage that poor that they fail to mention that the Egyptian army was wiped out crossing the Red Sea today?
It seems as if God left Earth after ACTS and said, "You're all on your own now, until I return."
Or, you might say that God wasn't finished with us and sent the Prophet Mohammed.
Or, you might say that God wasn't finished with us and explained the truth to the Mormons.
I guess the question is, where is God? Where should we look for Him? And just what would it take for Him to make Himself known to us?
1 comment:
There are a number of things that jump out at me in this post...
While we don't get the benefit of the big-budget special effects miracles, we do see and hear God through the voices of others. If God can use a donkey to speak to someone, He most certainly can use even the homeless guy on the street to speak to you. I know I miss a lot of those messages when I'm focused on something else.
But I think we can see so much of ourselves in the lives of the Israelites in the Old Testament, too - if anything perhaps our faith is stronger because God DOESN'T have to show Himself to us like He did - even after He showed Himself to them, what did they do? Went back to worshipping the idols, setting up asherah poles and the like.
One other interesting point - when I was in the CoC, they disavowed the active, living presence of the Holy Spirit in today's world - they believe that the Holy Spirit left at the end of the apostolic age, and that we literally are left to our own devices, using the New Testament specifically as a pattern for our lives. And if it doesn't fit the New Testament "pattern", then a person's life and life of worship in church are un-Christian. Bizarre, since I've never read or heard from them a specific description of the New Testament pattern of worship.
I'm out...
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