I've been thinking today about God's dealings with us. Sometimes we get so focused on ourselves that we miss what God is doing elsewhere. Jeremiah 29:10-11 is a favorite passage of hope, written by the prophet Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. These exiles included King Jehoichin, the queen mother, and all the craftsman and intellectuals. Here it is, quoted from The Message:
As soon as Babylon's seventy years are up, and not a day before, I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out-- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for...
Notice that it says "When BABYLON's seventy years are up..." and not "when YOUR seventy years are up"? God was pointing out that it wasn't all about them. God was dealing with Babylon. And God notes elsewhere that this exile wasn't punishment, it was protection! In Jeremiah 24, God shows the prophet a vision of two baskets of figs. One basket is full of beautiful ripe figs, fragarent and delicious. The other basket is full of rotten figs- too nasty to be eaten. And then God explains to Jeremiah what the vision means. Jeremiah 24:5-7 says, quoted from The Message:
Then GOD told me, "This is the Message from the God of Israel: The exiles from here that I sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I'll make sure they get good treatment. I'll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I'll bring them back to this land. I'll build them up and not tear them down; I'll plant them, not uproot them.
And I'll give them a heart to know me, GOD. They'll be my people and I'll be their God, for they'll have returned to me with all their hearts.
-Jeremiah 24:4-7, The Message
There are often times when God's people go through hardship. This may feel a lot like punishment, but God has bigger things going on. These hardships are so that He will ultimately be glorified through our response, and we need to ride them out with grace. One of my favorite examples is in Exodus 5. God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharoah to tell him to let God's people go. Instead of complying, Pharoah ordered that straw be no longer provided to the Hebrew slaves for their brick-making, but the old quotas would still be in force. Then he had all the Hebrew foremen beaten for their failure to make the quotas. So unfair! Here is how Exodus 5:22-23 recounts the aftermath, quoted from The Message:
Moses went back to God and said, "My Master, why are you treating this people so badly? And why did you ever send me?"
[Here Moses is questioning God about his calling. But we would never be so foolish. Nope. Never. Not us.]
"From the moment I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, things have only gotten worse for your people. And rescue? Does this look like rescue to you?"
[Stomps foot for emphasis.]
Unfair! That was Moses' challenge to God. That God was being unfair. Have you ever thought that in your heart about a situation you were in? That God was being unfair? I have.
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharoah: because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country."
God ALSO said to Moses,
[An English speaker would probably have started the next part of this conversation by saying "By the way..." This tells the listener to pay attention, because now the speaker is getting around to the REALLY important part of the conversation-- where God was about to teach Moses about God's own character, by means of sharing His true name. (Fans of The Inheritance Cycle best sellers by Christopher Paolini should prick up their ears at this.)]
"I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, [El Shaddai] but by my name the LORD [Yahweh] I did not make myself known to them."
-Exodus 6:1-3, The NIV
Here we encounter a code, put into most English language Bibles by the translators to allow us to know which Hebrew name for God was in the original text. When we see the name "God Almighty", we know that the name used was El Shaddai. This is a two-part name. The first part, "El" means strength, and is used all by itself as God's name in some passages. It also has connotations of creation and promise keeping. So you could interpret this name El as "The - Strong - Creator - God - Who - Keeps - His - Promises." The second half of the name is Shaddai. "Shad" was Hebrew for a woman's breast-- making "Shaddai" mean "The breasted one." Or put another way, the Nourisher, or the Provider. Put them together and you get "The - Strong - Creator - God - Who - Provides - For - Us - And - Keeps - His - Promises." Isn't that cool? But in English, we ended up with just "God Almighty" (Sigh.)
When I hear the name "God Almighty", I think of it as "The God who can do ANYTHING." You know, the God of the BIG things. But my Russian Bible translates this name as "Bog Vsyo-mogoo-shee." Which I translate as "The - God - Who - Is - Able - To - Do - Everything." The God who cares and arranges all the details of our lives. The God of the details. Often (daily?) I stress over all the details. But He is the God who is able to take care of eveything. It's on Him, not me. So I don't need to be stressing!
In the second half of the above verse, God reveals to Moses his proper name, Yahweh, which was written witout the vowels, making it Y-H-W-H. Medieval monks transliterated it into "Jehovah" in English, but we now understand that Yahweh is the correct form. Interestingly, we encounter the worship of Yahweh elsewhere-- not just with the ancient Hebrews! Joshua J. Mark writes in his article on the name Yahweh in www.WorldHistory.org/Yahweh :
"Although the Bible, and specifically the book of Exodus, presents Yahweh as the god of the Israelites, there are many passages that make clear that this deity was also worshiped by other peoples in Canaan. [Scholar Nissim Amzallag- Ben Gurion University] notes that the Edomites, Kenites, Moabites, and Midianites all worshiped Yahweh to one degree or another and that there is evidence the Egyptians who operated the mines at Timnah converted an earlier Egyptian temple of Hathor to the worship of Yahweh."
This idea fascinates me. We have Yahweh speaking to Abram in Haran in Genesis 12:1:
The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you..."
Here's what I think: that this was not the first time Yahweh spoke to Abram. Had it been, Abram's response to being told by some strange god to pack his household and hit the road to an unspecified destination would have been "Who dis???" But instead, he obeyed. Why? Because he already had a relationship with Yahweh. Why? Because his people were already worshiping Yahweh. Why? Because that knowledge of the Creater - God Yahweh was still be passed down from father to son since the great flood. But in the 500-600 years from the call of Abram to the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan, that knowledge and worship was lost.
I believe one of God's reasons for bringing the Israelites to Canaan was to bring the knowledge of Himself back to the peoples of Canaan who had once worshiped him. Not coming as the foreign Hebrew god, but as the Creator-God Yahweh who loved them, whom they had worshiped in the past. The Hebrews thought it was all about them. That THEY were special. But God's heart for (all) the other peoples of the earth is encountered all through scripture. Isaiah 56:6-7 reads (quoted from the NIV):
And the foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant--
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my alter;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.
So, do we know any foreigners, any immigrants, who need to be introduced to the Creater-God? To The - Strong - God - Who - Provides - For - Us - And - Keeps - His -Promises? Or perhaps we ourselves are unfamiliar with the God who became flesh and blood (John 1:14), and moved into our neighborhood to re-introduce Himself on Christmas morning, all those years ago?
Christmas is coming. Isn't it time you were introduced?
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