I'm with God it can be so hard to please mankind.
In the desert after God had saved the Israelites from slavery they moaned. There was no food, then when they were given food they moaned that it was only manna. Only manna, the food of Heaven! I ask you. So God gave them Quail.
God sent his only Son, his beloved One to earth to overcome sin and to free mankind so that he could have free access to the Kingdom of God. Wow.
God gives us His Love and we still complain.
God gives us His Spirit and we still complain.
Are we missing something?
Are we looking for something so extraordinary that we don't see the Beauty.
Simplicity.
My 16 year old daughter and I went for a walk yesterday to a place that we used to visit frequently as a family when all the children were little. It is a place called Badbury Rings. It is an historic area where the Romans lived in Dorset, England. The kids loved running along the tops of the mounds, they were intrigued by the circles. Here we flew kites as the wind was always brilliant for aerial maneuvers.
Usually when we walked there we would do the circular tour, but yesterday we decided to take a route that we had never taken before. The pathway took us along the very edges of the area and away from the mounds. We walked through mud and were passed by by horses and their riders. We talked endlessly about my daughter's granddad, a hero of the 2nd World War. How she and her brother and sister were only here today because a German officer who arrived on the scene where the firing squad were about to fire decided not to have him shot for escaping from a prisoner of war camp. That her Granddad had prayed an instant before for God's help and he had been answered. This I told her had been the first instance of God interceding in her Grandfather's life. The second was when he had again escaped from a POW camp and was hiding in the roots of an enormous tree and the German soldiers and their dogs were standing right over his hiding place. Her Granddad had prayed that his scent would not be picked up by the dogs and this is indeed what happened. This escape was to be his greatest success and he made it all the way to Scotland.
In the familiar surrounding of our favourite walking place we talked about God. Now this is in itself is not usual, my daughter does not do talking about God. But here in the open space of natural beauty we found we were able to commune. When we finally made it via a very long detour to the tops of the Rings we could see for miles and miles. The view was magnificent. We stopped and listened, there was not a sound to be heard. Total silence. I told my daughter that this is what life is about, special moments when we can just take time and be. No questions, no answers just Being.
Simplicity.
God was there with us. She knew it, I knew it. There was no moaning, no 'I wants', no selfish desires.
In that moment we saw God for who He really was and is. The Creator of Beauty. We wanted for nothing, we just looked and stood in awe.
My daughter suddenly realized something and shared with me these words. "I am so proud of my Granddad, I wish I had known him better. Without his prayers I would not be here." To me this was the most amazing words she could have said in that special place. Why, because she understood that she had a purpose, that God wanted her. GOD WANTED HER. Not only that He wanted her for a reason. He had saved her granddad so that she could be born. For a teenager who has struggled with life and had wanted to end it some years back this was the most treasured thing I could have heard.
All the nights of crying what's the point in this life, were now answered. GOD WANTED HER.
The Israelites wanted food, they wanted warmth, they wanted their old life back. They didn't feast on what God had done for them, they moaned, grumbled, and disputed with God. They did not see that GOD WANTED THEM. He wanted them for a reason. For a very special reason. A reason that would have universal implications.
God wants us all. We are here for a reason and I hope that by taking time to just be, that one day in those times of being we will discover what that reason is. It matters not if it is just for a moment in time or for a greater world changing event, finding out God's reason for our being is to bring Glory to His Love for and of us.
God bless.
