Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 December 2004 12:55:01
It's amazing how with stuff in the bible, we are familiar with, we can still find new detail, when we go back to the book to read them ourselves. Suppose I could have hooked up with the bible blogg for this, but that would require organisation.
The theme in my reading today was the pillar of cloud & fire which led the Israelites out of Egypt & into the desert. (Exodus 13 vs 17 - 22 (ish)). It was only as I read it that I figured that if they had the cloud and fire so they could travel day & night they must have been feeling completely wrecked during that journey, so exhausted, especially as God took them the long way round out of Egypt, because he was so worried they'd bottle it if they went the quick way through enemy territory & faced war. God also provided practical signs to guide them (Psalm 105 vs 37 - 39(ish)) says the cloud also kept them cool in the heat of the day & the fire warmed them at night.
As we sometimes face our own journeys into the desert (be that depression, lonliness, or more positive ones that we just have to go through to clear out the junk) I've found it kind of comforting to realise that God must have had to listen to the same junk down the centuries but hasn't given up on us, rather he guides us through, but only as much as we can handle (although it sometimes feel like we're having to deal with more than that)even if it means he has to take us the long way round. Not that we don't have to decide & take responsibility for following him, the Children of Israel made wrong choices as they went on the journey just like we do.
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Sorry if all that's abit spiritual and "Christiany" today, but as somebody who is on abit of a downer at the moment knowing that at the moment has bought a ray of hope in.