I expect we all remember playing a game called something like "if I were king for a day." What would we want to do in this world if we were in charge of everything for a day, a week, a month? Maybe we'd want to accomplish good things, heal diseases, bring prosperity and order, stop crime, educate people. There are all sorts of good goals we can have. Often we have strong opinions about how to reach those goals. And some of the plans we have to reach our goals might even work.
Over and over again in Scripture we see that God has plans. He has goals for this world. Yet our Lord does not carry out his plans in the way we might expect. This is seen in our Ezekiel reading ever so clearly. Consider the way a river works. It starts in one place and unless it has water from other sources flowing into it the river will become smaller and smaller until it ends. The water that starts flowing will evaporate and be absorbed into the ground before too long and the river will be gone. Not so with God's river. Entirely without receiving nourishment from other sources, this healing, nourishing, life-giving river of God grows and grows. As it provides for the people the river of God takes nothing and gives everything.
Our Lord has given us life, eternal life, through his giving of himself. He does not strip us of our identity. He does not strip us of our creativity. He does not strip us of our intellect. In fact, he gives. The only thing he removes is sin. In return for our sin he gives us life and provision for all we need. We simply receive it by believing. And here is the place many of us stumble. We do not have to use our plans for accomplishing world peace. We do not use our plans to bring prosperity and order. We do not use our plans to create society in our own image. That image, the background we have, the nature we have lived with, is like a river which, when not fed, dries up. No, we do not use those plans. We use God's plans. We work as the Holy Spirit directs, as the Scripture has revealed to us, to bring good, healing, and life to our world.
Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." Let us come to the Lord for life.
No comments:
Post a Comment