Hall of Mirrors

From Romans 10:

Paul goes on about Israel, where he left off in Romans 9. The Message Bible uses the heading, "The Loyal Minority," meaning the steadfast Jews who are "convinced of God's grace and purpose in choosing them." Then Paul adds, "The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them..." He then quotes Moses and Isaiah:

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways, God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears, shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors, and they're there to this day.

Hmmm, that could describe some of us today who aren't Israelites.

Shut up in a hall of mirrors.

Where the only reflection you see is your own?

Where you can't find your way out because of your own reflection coming from every angle?

As humans, our first instinct usually is to care about ourselves, how we feel, how things affect us. Sometimes we get locked in the hall of mirrors for a long time before we think to look up and see a clear way out.

My message is short today. It's a simple one. I'm trying to get the reflection off of myself all the time and rather mirror the reflection of God who lives in me.

Does Anyone Care, God?

From Romans 10, The Message Remix Bible.

Paul is telling us that unless people hear about God, they won't be able to trust him. God's grace and love are available to every single human, no matter what their religious heritage or upbringing. It doesn't matter if you're a Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Buddhist, or Atheist. God is available if you just call to him. Just trust him.

But, Paul says,

"... not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: 'Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?'

Isaiah was really down in the dumps when he cried that out to God. I feel that way sometimes.

We know God is real and waiting to bring everyone to him, but so many people are running in circles trying to fulfill themselves on their own. It's as if they don't want to listen to the truth.

And then I remember... I was that way too once upon a time. It took a lot before God got my attention.

Now Paul says,

But unless Christ's Word is preached, there's nothing to listen to.

It's up to me--and you--if we're already believers, to get out there and spread the word. It's not up to us whether anyone listens or acts on what we tell them; it's just what God wants us to do.

But, once again, Paul is speaking of Israel here, as he has been in our reading up to now. Still, I see myself as one of those stubborn Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, seeing all the miracles and receiving everything I need day by day, and still not "getting" it. That was me many, many moons ago.

There are still some days when I regress back to the desert when life isn't going my way.

But less and less as time goes on. It happens that way.

Isaiah repeats words God gave him:

People found and welcomed me who never so much as looked for me. And I found and welcomed people who had never even asked about me.

That was me. I was just going on my unproductive way in life, and someone said something to me that stuck with me. Later I rolled it over and over in my mind. Than I took a chance and decided to see if God was really there. That was it. Life stayed the same but at the same time began a different course. I look back now and see what happened. I see the plan God put into motion. For me. He did it for me.

Still speaking about Isaiah, Paul says this in closing:

Then he capped it with a damning indictment. Day after day after day, I beckoned Israel with open arms, and got nothing for my trouble but cold shoulders and icy stares.

Please don't be like Israel whom Isaiah is describing. Look around you. Breathe in the freshness of nature. Realize there is a plan to all this. Become part of it.

Life Message Update

In between posting my ramblings on The Message Bible here, I've updated my main site, www.bettyannschmidt.com where I'm organizing my book, The Life Message Scrapbook: Simple Steps to Writing Your Stories.

First chapter is "The Word." Second, which I'm now working on, is "Order." If you're a scrapbooker, you probably know about order. If you don't know about order, it's hard to get everything organized to actually get those memories down onto album pages. I talk about organizing your mind as well, even before organizing your photos and supplies.

The project we are working on here is writing your Life Message. Your legacy of faith for your descendants. It's a worthy project indeed. I'll keep you up to date here on my blog when I add more chapters to the "Workshop" on my site.

Is God Unfair?

Lagging a few days behind. Summer does that to me.

Today is from Romans 9, The Message as usual.

Paul's writing in Romans 9 deals with something that has always confused me. I started thinking about it when I saw the The Ten Commandments movie. You know, the one with Charleston Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as Ramses, who was Pharaoh of Egypt. God had "hardened Ramses' heart" against the Israelites. I started thinking, did Ramses have a choice then? I mean if God hardens your heart, what's the use?

Here Paul recounts the story of Rebecca, Isaac's wife, who bore twins Esau and Jacob.

God told Rebecca, 'The firstborn of your twins will take second place.' Later that was turned into a stark epigram: 'I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.'

Then Paul asks the Romans if that's a reason to think of God as unfair. He explains then,

Not so fast, please. God told Moses, 'I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion.' Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy.

Then Paul explains, just for me I'm sure, about the earlier story in The Ten Commandments movie.

The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, 'I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.' All we're saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill. Are you going to object, 'So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?'

Paul then explains that we are not God. God is God. The one and only. I think of the Book of Job, how God said that very thing to Job and his sorry friends. How he asked them if they could control the sea the air, the moon and stars. I love Paul's analogy here:

Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, 'Why did you shape me like this?' Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans. If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right?

Paul then quotes Isaiah::

Salvation comes by personal selection. God...calls us by name.

Woah. What does that mean? Paul's actually talking about Israel here, the Jews. God's chosen people. But all the chosen people didn't get it. Some of them weren't interested if it meant accepting a Messiah that didn't look like what they had in mind. So, then, God made it possible for "us" to get the word. He called us. We became chosen.

Do we answer when called? That's up to us, isn't it? Just like not all the Jews could accept it, some of us don't want to accept it either. Paul says the people in Israel, some of them, were too busy studying about God to notice he was right in their midst.

How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing...they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.

Again Paul quotes Isaiah:

Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion, a stone you can't get around. But the stone is me! If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the way, not in the way.

Be careful; don't stumble.