You’ve got to love the instruction books that come with new products. When you pull it out of the box you think the item must be incredibly complex if that’s the thickness of the instructions! But on closer inspection you realise it’s not the length of the instructions making them so big, but the fact they’re printed in various different languages.
And so begins the desperate hunt for one you recognise and can understand – that we may get the most from the product.
The people are about to enter the new land. A land full of strange practices, far from God’s ways. They are going to need to know how to live. God promises instructions.
As they have crossed the desert, they have been afraid when God has spoken to them directly, even as he has led them in the pillar of fire. They don’t want to encounter him again in that way – a choice God saw as a good one!
So what God promises to do is send them someone from among their own people; someone who would speak their language; someone who would interpret Gods ways to them in a way they could understand.
We, understand that ultimately to be Jesus – Gods son, but born as a human being to interpret Gods ways in human language. Born as a human to give us a full understanding of how we are meant to live. Not just telling, but showing.
But it also gives us a challenge:
- How do we live, so as to interpret Gods ways in a way that people if our time and place get?
- How do we continue to let Jesus shine through as the ultimate expression of all god has to show us?
Thank you Lord
that you want your ways to be understood,
that you do not leave us to flounder,
but speak to us in ways we can understand,
and show us your ways lived out in the life of Jesus.
I pray
that you may help me
to live out your life
in ways that make sense
to those around me,
and that I may learn from others
who live your ways too.
