August 23, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’” (Zechariah 8.4)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

A recent report reveals that Saudi Arabia is already constructing a “straight-line” city. It will be 170 kilometers long and half a kilometer high. It will be bounded by glass walls. It will house 9 million people at the cost of 500,000,000,000 dollars. That’s billion. I wonder who will be chosen and allowed to live in that city. Let me tell you of another city that is already under construction. It is a city that will be 1500 kilometers on each of its four sides. It will have walls 1500 kilometers high. It will have its own power supply and weather system independent of the earth that will surround it. It will house one-fifth of the world’s population which at this moment would be approximately 1.7 billion people if the project were completed today. I wonder less who will be chosen and allowed to live in that city. Its citizenry will have nothing to do with any nation, ethnicity, gender or socio-economic determination. The singularity of its population will be “those who put their trust in the Lord in the name of Jesus the Christ.” It will be a city not built with human hands as it exists eternal in the heavens. It is a construction project which began nearly 2000 years ago. No one but the Father of all life knows when it will be completed. Not even the Master Craftsman, God’s only begotten Son, knows the completion date nor when its grand opening will occur. Such places challenge even our modern thinking and invite us to wonder about “considering the cost.” My mind sputters and stutters to even attempt wrestling with the vastness of such things. At this point, I am with the shepherd psalmist David of Bethlehem who in the midst of all creation as he watched his father’s flocks sang “What is man that You, o God, are mindful of him; and the son of man that you would consider him to be a little less than the angels of Heaven. When I consider the heavens, the sun and moon and stars and this earth where man is crowned with glory and honor and the duty to rule over and care for all the works of Your hands, I am in awe. It is by the majesty of Your name that this is true.” (Psalm 8) It is an overwhelming thought of the immensity of it all. From my perspective and our perspective, the immensity is nearly beyond imagination. To the best of our scientific ability, we try to wrap our minds around it. Some even believe they can see over the horizon of the known universe only to see more universe without end. All I can do is to consider my portion of it all and realize the responsibility to accomplish it would be impossible without God.

And it isn’t complexity which God sees as He proclaims the return of the Temple, Jerusalem and Israel to their natural state. It is simplicity that is promised and assured. There is a comfort and beauty in what God shared with Zechariah in the accomplishing of this fete of “reconciliation.” In just one verse, God sets the picture in our mind and in our heart so that our spirit will be at rest. Let’s hear it again: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’ Take a moment, if you dare, and look at the streets of modern-day Jerusalem. Do you see such calm and peace there? Draw a line out 750 kilometers to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west. Look at the cities within that boundary and ask the same question. What we see if more fitting of Jesus’ words concerning the “signs of the times” where there are wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes and sorrows beyond imagination. What is not commonly present in those places will be people growing old gracefully and children playing without fear. Can we say that about where we ourselves live? Yet, this is what God promised that the new world of restored Israel would look like and feel like. Yes, it has a feeling. Our imagination captures the sensation of the picture God provides even as we read it. Sounds of laughter and storytelling begin to fill the ears of our mind as if we can almost make out the words. We may even remember a few times when all seemed right with our world and such a scene might have existed. Some may even title those moments as “the good old days” even though it is only with our own lifetime which has not come to its completion of days. God is not talking about restoring those “good old days” when He speaks to Zechariah. God is projecting His promise of the days to come when what seems “the exception to the rule” today will be the rule of eternity forever.

If that is the feeling of calm, rest and peace we long for in our own lives, then why are we not committing to the ways of God who alone can accomplish it? Why is it that we believe we know better and can do better than what God has designed with the image of intentionality. It really isn’t different than what God revealed in the beginning when by the Word of His mouth, the breath of His Holy Spirit, all of it was created and set in place. Like a Great Dane puppy’s paws, they are something they will grow into. And so, too, were the first parents created in faith as Adam and Eve. Theirs was a world they would grow into. Except for a wrong turn at the Tree, they would have. Instead, they were cast out into the world that would challenge their senses. What they began to experience outside the boundaries of Eden defied imagination. Fortunately, there was, is and will always be one consistent factor to give us hope. That is the God factor, Yahweh Elohim. He is with us and not truly against us. Life may seem nearly impossible at times and they would be if it were not for God. If what we desire is such a life which feels truly at peace and as natural as we could imagine natural to be, then it will be because we will step back into the presence of God and abide by His word and receive the fullness of His promise. It can happen and it will happen. Who it will happen to is a matter of choice for yourself.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.