Like Jacob, I have tried doing deals with God. He doesn’t do deals. I tried 'invoicing' him in return for my tithes. It didn’t work.
I tried 10 meetings a week to feel accepted. Didn’t help. I compared myself to others and felt worse. I second guessed him and guessed wrong.
I tried every approach to prayer, such as the groan, the shout, logical reasoning and manipulation. Never found the formula.
Then I observed what great biblical souls learnt and realized I had to stop the ..... I tired of wrong roads and opted for the right road.
What I found is that our formative learnings about reward, punishment and manipulation, may apply to religion, but hardly describe God.
Elijah’s own view was that a good dose of miracles, signs, fire and brimstone would help the medicine go down, but God wasn’t in that either.
Moses reached his turning point when he accepted that God is. He is not relative to our feelings, moods or size of faith. Nor is he the great maybe or I’ll think about it. Elijah got the email too: as a still, small voice, akin to the ever-burning, yet never consuming fire at the heart of Moses’ faith.
Is that reasonable? Well the book of Hebrews says, “He that comes to God must believe he is and that he fulfills those who earnestly seek him”.
Bottom line: He is an un-moving rock, pure, authentic, real, sure, just, loving. His acts of conciliation had nothing to do with our initiatives, rituals, formulas, models or dogmas, but everything to do with his love for us.
(c) Peter Missing: bethelstone@gmail.com
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