Monday, June 13, 2011

Embracing Our Moment in History

In Matthew 13:17, we have Jesus saying that there have been many good people and religious leaders that lived with the hope of experiencing Messiah but their lives expired before it occurred. This could also be said of the Children of Israel that lived in Egypt for 450 years. Many people live and die over four-plus centuries. And yet, they hoped for something that must've been talked about regularly in meetings and around dinner tables: Being people of a God that had revealed Himself to their father Abraham and being entitled to a land they could call their own.

America has only been in existence for only half the amount of time that the Israelites were in Egypt and we have come to expect that all things should happen within our lifetime. The stream of God's activity flows through humanity and people are welcome to participate with God in the unfolding of history at the time in which they live. We can pray, hope, live and love to the fullest of our capacity- but we may not realize all that we might like to have.

TV preachers that claim God is sending revival, prophets that claim the rapture will be here soon, and pastors that expect their congregations to achieve Americanized goals are all the product of a culture that wants what it wants now. Fast food and drive through windows are reflections of our need to have things as quickly as possible. And being good Westerners, we expect something of a spectacular nature. We want a spiritual experience with bells and whistles.

Not even Elijah got that. He was taken to his knees by a still, small voice when he might've been impressed with the fire and earthquake.

Perhaps seeing the grand scope and eternal quality of our majestic God will allow us to embrace our moments of life in Jesus. Hope is a quality that should define us but entitlement is a value of a narcissistic culture. God's "culture" is defined by His will and glory, not ours.

Did I mention that patience is also part of the Spirit's DNA?

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