How Odd of God

“How Odd of God”

I spend a lot of time thinking about God – I suppose it goes with the my life’s work - I don’t know . . . .  A few weeks ago, I was struck with the phrase “the problem with God”, and then “a really cool thing about God.”  Well, it has hit me again today.   “How odd of God!”

Phillip Yancey’s book, “Reaching for the Invisible God”, is a good read and I have so many highlights and marked pages they have nearly become meaningless because of their number.  Anyway, this from Yancey:

“. . . God also chose to relate on a closer level with a tribe of people descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  So closely did God get involved, in fact, that he ‘moved in’ with them, first in a tent in the wilderness, later in a temple built by Solomon.”

I don’t know about you, but I find it odd that God would want to move closer to folks like us.  The Bible is full of references to God’s heaven, and it just strikes me as odd that He would want to live closer to people like me . . . and you!  He first had Moses build Him that tent so He could be closer to a rebellious, nomadic people -  they called it the “Tent of Meeting” – the place God met with them through Moses.  And later it would be Solomon’s spectacular temple for God to call His home on earth.  It too, was a place of meeting but in that case, the people were to come to Him when the temple was completed.

 But the oddest and strangest of all was when “The Word became flesh and blood,

and moved into the neighborhood.  We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish” (John 1:14 – The Message).  And it gets even odder when we read the invitation that we can “. . . become friends with God; He’s already a friend with you.  ‘How?’ you ask.  In Christ.  God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21 – The Message).

I suppose that’s why we call it good news - really, really good news!

On the journey . . .

Pastor J K

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