Isaiah 30:18 - Therefore the LORD is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. All who wait patiently for Him are happy.
I still remember the painful lesson I
learned many years ago when email first became a popular communication tool.
Another person and I had a disagreement about something and exchanged a series
of emails back and forth about it. Though most of the emails were cordial,
toward the end of the exchange, as our frustration level increased, the emails
got curt, tense and a bit mean. If someone read the entire exchange of emails,
he or she would have understood the flow of conversation and clearly see the
effort made by both parties to correct the situation. But the last couple of
emails, read out of context, made us both look mean-spirited.
Regretfully, my friend chose to share my
last email with a number of other people. Since he did not share the rest of
the conversation, it made me look bad. Though we eventually got it all worked
out, it took a long time to repair the relationship. I learned a valuable
lesson in that experience about how easy it is to take something out of context
if one does not understand the entire conversation.
This seems to be the case when many
people read certain sections of the Old Testament. A young man in our church
asked me a question about an Old Testament passage that described a particular
judgment God exercised on a group of people. Like many of the episodes of God’s
wrath in the Old Testament, the example seemed harsh when lifted out of the
context of the entire Old Testament narrative.
I reminded the young man that the Old
Testament narrative covers a historical period of nearly 4000 years. During
that time a compassionate and gracious God revealed Himself again and again to
a people that often ignored His overtures of love. God never sent judgment
without first sending a warning – oftentimes, repeated warnings. He sent
prophets, priests, and kings to lead the people in the right direction. God
used miracles, both small and large, to demonstrate that He was real and could
be trusted.
In the Old Testament, God was
long-suffering in His efforts to draw people to Himself. Yet, at certain points
during that time period, God judged evil behavior. If we only focus on those
moments of judgment, the God of the Old Testament seems harsh, perhaps even
evil. But if we read the entire conversation, we see a love story between God and
a people He was trying to draw to Himself.
Much like the email conversation I had
with my friend so many years ago, if one reads only the last email, one may get
a skewed picture of the author. But if people read the entire conversation, the
final email makes more sense. If we approach our study of the Old Testament the
same way, we will find far more nuggets of unfailing, faithful love than we
realized in those ancient texts.
Lord,
help me be diligent to read Your entire conversation with Your people so I can
more fully understand Your goodness. Amen.
This post is an excerpt from the book, The
Heavenly Mundane: Daily Devotions from Ordinary Experiences. Filled with stories of how God spoke in
big ways through small events, the book will encourage people to look for God
in the mundane things of life. Great for both personal use and to give as a
gift to friend, either the print version or the e-book version may be purchased
at this link:
No comments:
Post a Comment