February 23 | Obedience

Leviticus 14:1-57

Mark 6:30-56

Psalm 40:1-10

Proverbs 10:11-12

I am so glad I was not one of the Israelites God freed from slavery in Egypt.  Having read Leviticus this far, I am certain that, by this time, there would have been multiple reasons to have cast me out or killed me. I would have been one of those struggling to keep from sinning for just one day, only to find a skin condition at sunset, or only to wake up the next morning to a moldy scent in my house.  

The intricacy, the degree of detail with which God demands obedience in the Old Testament is intense.  Some of it - emptying the moldy house, cutting out the moldy stone - makes sense.  Some of it - cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet yarn and a live bird, dipped in the blood of a dead bird - does not.  At least, not to me.  (I mean, dipping a live bird in a dead bird - really?) 

The example Jesus gives in the New Testament seems so much simpler, and makes so much more sense, it would seem.  They didn't have a chance to eat, even?  "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."  Your current circumstances causing you worry and fear?  "Take courage!  It is I.  Don't be afraid."  The example seems to be the personification of the psalm - "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire - but my ears you have opened - burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require...I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart." Then I  will not depend upon externally imposed, intricate sacrifices.  What I do with God is governed by what is in my heart.  

A question that comes to mind, after all this - why the difference?  I don't know.  But I believe He knows.  He knows why it seems He made obedience so difficult for the Israelites; He knows why He made obedience so puzzling for the Pharisees.  I pray I always have the humility to admit that not only does He know why, He knows better - infinitely better - than I do .  And I pray that I accept His will and His ways in faith.  Then I will be able to wait patiently for the Lord while I am in the slimy pit, in mud and mire.  I will trust in the Lord, not in the proud or in false gods.  

Father, help me today to trust in You, in what you ask, whether or not it makes sense to me, whether You call me to a quiet place, You tell me not to be afraid; whether You tell me to paint my right big toe with blood, or to bathe in the Jordan river seven times.  May my response always be "Thy will be done."