Thought for Today
Exodus 3:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.
Genesis 32:24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
Acts 9:3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" 5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
“1930: easier to act yourself into right thinking than to think yourself into right acting. (Spoken by John S. White or F. J. Finch)” (quoteinvestigator.com)
Can we really, truly change? Is it possible for anyone to fundamentally change who and what we are? Obviously, throughout our lives we grow and develop. We encounter new people, new ideas, new problems and challenges. I love to read. Irrespective of whether I read fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, inevitably I will encounter new thoughts and concepts. When I do encounter them, is it possible for me to change who I am based on those new thoughts and concepts, those new ideas?
Our minister in Houston often quoted one of his own seminary professors with a variation of that quotation above. As I remember, his version went, “It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” Is it? Or, are we fixed into the words of Qoheleth, “Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. . . 14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.” Can we really, truly change? Is it possible for anyone to fundamentally change who and what we are?
Was Moses the same Moses before the burning bush as he was after the burning bush? Exodus 3:1 tells us, “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian . . . “ Implicit in that verse is the idea that there was knowledge of and worship of our Creator God long before there even was a Hebrew people. And, equally implicit in the whole story of Moses and that burning bush is the reality that people can fundamentally change. Moses’ purpose in life, his orientation to himself and the world around him changed.
Was Isaac’s son Jacob the same before and after his wrestling match? Was the one who schemed with his mother to steal his brother’s birthright the same one who later encountered his brother Esau and reconciled with him?
For Christians, possibly the most significant Bible story about fundamental change is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus into Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. Saul was on that road to Damascus “Acts 9:1 . . . still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” with “2 . . . letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Following his encounter with Jesus, that same person could describe himself to be , “Romans 1:1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” Can we really, truly change? Is it possible for anyone to fundamentally change who and what we are?
Maybe that question should be reframed into “Can we really, truly change whose we are?” Moses, Jacob and Paul changed through their individual encounters with God. They did not so much change their intellects, their emotional characteristics, their ways of acting as they changed their ways of thinking. Or, did God change their way of thinking? Can anyone remain unchanged through a personal encounter with God?
Moses, Jacob and Paul all acted very differently following their encounters with God. Those encounters made each of them fully aware of whose they were. They were made cognizant of the One True God, our Creator God.
Are transformative encounters with God available to everyone? Can you . . . can I have a personal encounter with God. Can we ‘encounter’ our way into a new way of acting? Read your Bible. Decide for yourself.
Stay safe, read carefully, trust God,
Pastor Ray