And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am."I was thinking about how I needed to remember to be aware of God working and to be sure to "turn aside" and notice it. There's an idea for a blog post, I thought. But, hey, this seems a little familiar to me. I wouldn't want to post the exact same thing I already posted. So I checked the archives. January of 2011. . . nope. January or 2010. . .yep, sure enough, I posted about that very thought.
Dang! I must be so dense that I just keep having to learn the same thing over and over. At first, this was discouraging to me. But then I realized that, yes, I am that obtuse sometimes, and I became grateful to God for the gift of His Word, and for the discipline to keep reading it. If you haven't figured it out yet, I do a "read through the Bible in a year" plan (there are many you can choose). I am often amazed at what new insight the Lord will show me in a passage I've read since childhood. However, I am now also humbled and thankful that the Lord keeps reminding me of the things that I so easily forget. Jesus compares us to sheep quite often. Sheep are not very smart. Jesus' disciples were not the brightest bunch. I need to hear things over and over until they sink into my brain, and then my heart, and then work themselves out in obedience through my feet (thank you Beth Moore for that analogy).
One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters". On page 119 he discusses how God has given humans both the desire for novelty and the desire for permanence:
[The Lord] has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before. (p. 116).Reading through the Bible over and over fulfills that same desire--the same people, psalms, and promises over and over and over, until the truth finally becomes a part of me, but balanced by new insights and new comvictions in each new year. I am amazed at how He takes care of us!
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