The predictable “world”
While watching a few movies in the past weeks I noticed that the “world” is so predictable. There’s always a mistress or an illegitimate child or forbidden love or some other relationship outside of traditional family. There’s usually somebody trying to achieve something and he is fighting within himself the need to ‘step on others’ to get to the top, fighting the moral thing to do to follow his or her dreams, but he or she clearly comes to the conclusion that that’s what you have to do to win to achieve the dreamed, and he or she reluctantly becomes the person that they need to become to win, meaning they become ruthless or break rules. And many other patterns that we are used to recognizing in movies that are produced by this “world”.
I just saw the Ferrari (2023) movie yesterday and it was that same exact thing, even though it was recommended that I should watch the movie. Mistress, illegitimate child, getting to the top regardless of what happens to who and means to get there. This article is not in response to that movie in particular, but rather in the response to the passage that I read in the Bible this morning during breakfast.
Mini crises
I don’t know about you guys, but once in a while I go through these mini crises in my relationship with God and relationship to God. I suppose that’s how we grow and discover and understand God more.
This time while watching a couple of movies in the last few weeks I was talking with God and I was telling Him that I can clearly see the “world” in these movies, I clearly see the lust and the pride of which the world consist; I see it and it’s repulsive and I don’t like it, and I’m happy I’m not a part of it. But I’ve been asking God point-blank where is He and where is His power and where his style of life, where is the reality of Him in my life and lives of those surrounding me.
There are many beautiful ideas and thoughts that come out of the Bible through the pulpit, the YouTube channels, personal time spend with God on our walks and in the secret place, but there are days when those things just fall flat and don’t seem real. And I’ve been asking God to make Himself real in my life. Powerfully, undeniably, constantly. And that’s when I read the following passage.
The Passage
13 But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” Isaiah 8:13-15 (ESV)
And such a though is repeated in the Bible several times where the Bible clearly says that God and/ or Jesus will be a stumbling stone, something or someone on which people will be broken, their faith will be broken, their identity will be broken, their ideas of life and how things work will be broken. And what I understood here is that I must choose, I have a say and a decision to not be broken. I don’t have to be broken running into God, running into Jesus, I don’t have to stumble and fall apart over God, because Bible clearly says that He will be a stumbling block, but a sanctuary for others!
Sanctuary and Peace
God, I ask you to be my Sanctuary, to be my place of which David spoke that he would rather spend all the days of his life there (Psalm 27:4), a place where I can hide from the “worldly” ideas, such as that I have to reluctantly live by the world’s rules to get to places and to achieve things.
God I want you to be my Sanctuary where I know that a family is a unit, which is strong and does not have to be broken, doesn’t have to be reduced to the “world’s” standard, but rather the opposite. I know that building strong family is the only answer in this life. ‘Family is not in the way, family is the way.(*)’
God is a Sanctuary where I know that this life is a gift from God. The life that sometimes seems broken and under-designed, is actually a gift from God, and what’s going happen in the future is actually well thought through by the One who created the amazing hummingbird that can suspend itself in air at will, One that controls the billions of ripples on the lake when it rains and never breaks pattern, the One that makes a pelican glide over the water hunting for fish, the One that designed animals in such a way that we kill some for food, kill others in disgust, and love others and allow them to sleep with us in our beds.
God who made most of the world blue and green and caused us to experience peace and contentment when we look at blue and green, as to say, peace is around you, majority of this life is peace.
Just trust My design, let Me be your Sanctuary and not a stumbling block.
Amen.