Our false sense of entitlement
When will i know that i'm not entitled to my friends. When will i understand that i'm not entitled to comfort of any form. When will i grasp the fact that i'm here now and earning money not because i'm entitled to my talents and thus my profession. If i claim that i understood all those then why am i still complaining when every breath and every new day is a privilege to experience God's grace and mercy. No wonder God is so dissed with the Israelites... and i guess the same applies to me if he is immutable. Thank God for his grace and mercy which are new every morning! The greater is thy faithfulness, the more none should take it for granted for this is what no one is entitled to.
I figured that since He called himself to be the great "I AM", He must be so much more then just the God who brought us out of our misery or suffering. We can only know Him through what we choose to go through with him. Its a pity that the Israelites of the old testament, being the chosen nation to experience his great deliverance power, only their knew him only to such a extent.
Isn't this what faith ultimately is about? That it can only grow out of a relationship and not by empirical knowledge alone. Have i been so desensitised by the world that i have lost sight of the intensity of his awesomeness? Have i then lost my sense of wonder and gratefulness that is rightfully entitled to Him?
Exodus 20:2 - "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." I have always wondered why did God referred this of Himself (as this is what he was known to the Israelites) before He commanded that "You shall have no other Gods before me." Only until recently did i realised the profound truth hidden inside. That no one can worship what they do not know. The same implication goes for the depth of our worship. We cannot give gratitude or worship the dimension of God that we do not know. Like for example, how can we know that God is our provider when we are blind to his provision. How can we then give gratitude to what we choose not to exprienced of God? This shows our spiritual maturity as it is repeated so many times in the scriptures that the righteous will live by faith.
How grand it is just to have the opportunity to know God... and to think that i'm so shallow for not recognizing that every single moment.
How dread are Thine eternal years,
O everlasting Lord!
By prostrate spirits day and night
Incessantly adored!
How beautiful, how beautiful
The sight of Thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And awful purity!
Oh how I fear Thee, living God!
With deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship Thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears.
- Frederick W. Faber
posted by matt at 4:33 AM
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