If you're like me, and you try and read your Bible regularly, you probably spend most of your time reading the New Testament. Why wouldn't you? That's where the life of Jesus is recorded in the four Gospels. That's where the Christian life is spelled out. Well, I believe that the Bible is a story. It is a true story! That means that the beginning is just as important as the end, and if you don't understand the first part of the story, you won't be able to make sense of everything God gives us in the second part.
I've been spending some time this summer trying to get to know some of the early parts of the story. Some of it has been fun. I read Exodus and was again amazed at the power of our God as he sent plagues on Egypt and led His people through the Red Sea (Don't mess with our God). Some of it has been tedious. I read about all the different ways a person was considered to be "unclean," and the seven day process you had to go though to be made clean again. I read chapter after chapter about how they were to make the clothing that the priests would wear inside the temple. I read about who was supposed to carry what part of the temple when the people of Israel moved to a different location. A lot of the Old Testament can be difficult to get through. It is a lot of rules and regulations, and it is very very detailed!
This morning, I realized that I can relate to people in the Old Testament much better than I can to many people in the New Testament. I am reading in Numbers, and a pattern is emerging. God is with His people. LITERALLY. He stays over them as a cloud during the day and as fire during the night. His presence dwells in the tent of meeting. He speaks to Moses all the time. Again and again, however, the people become frustrated with God. He promised to bring them into a great land, and they want to get there. They keep complaining that God should have just let them stay as slaves in Egypt, because they are so tired of wandering in the wilderness.
That is me. I am so worried about where I am going in life. I really want God to go ahead and take me there. I'm reminded that the point of life is to live joyfully in God's presence. He is so gracious and good to us that He gives us Himself, in Christ, but the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm trying to wrap my head around the truth that "The Spirit of God dwells within us (Romans 8:9)." If that is true, than "getting somewhere" in life is not the point. The journey is the point.
God, forgive my anxious heart and show me the wonder of Your presence.
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