A Terrible Burden

A Terrible Burden

It’s a terrible burden to be your own god.

Although, some people do it pretty well.  They seem to manage their lives just fine, without any apparent need for God.  (I haven't been that good at it myself, but that hasn't kept me from trying.)

But, it still seems like an enormous amount of us live under the constant, unrelenting pressure to bless ourselves.  That is to be primarily responsible for our welfare.

The burden of this pressure to be our own gods occurred to me while preparing to teach on one of the oldest poems in the Bible.   It’s only three lines, fifteen words.  Three words in the first line, five in the second, seven in the third.  The number of syllables and consonants are also ordered:  12, 14, 16 and 15, 20, 25.  (In Hebrew).  It’s called Aaron’s Blessing.  It’s how  God told Moses that Aaron should put God’s blessing on the Israelites.  I’m sure that you have heard it before.

The LORD bless you and keep you:

The LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26 (NIV)

Notice that it uses the name of God three times, very unnecessary grammatically.  It’s the personal name of God, Yahweh.  Yaheh, Yahweh, Yahweh.  Pretty emphatic about God wanting to bless our lives

Imagine.  God’s best hope for your life is that you experience his goodness and blessing.  I bet you think that God’s best hope for your life is that you behave well, and you believe all the correct things.

When we don’t know God’s best hope for our lives we tend to feel responsible for our own blessing, our own well-being, our own protection, our own advancement.  Maybe without knowing it we take over God’s unique role – to provide  and care for us. 

It’s a God-size role that never fits any of us.

So, examine your stresses.  Good chance they come from your attempts to be your own god.  Next, examine the presence of joy and peace in your life.  You can relax about a lot of stuff when you know the difference between God’s role and yours.

How do you think we can best relax in God’s care?