I want to fall in love with God, not just the ideas and the wisdom of God-but WHO He is. I want to fall in love with the person of Jesus Christ. My natural leaning is towards wanting to know theology/things of the sort and therefore become more interested in the thoughts and plans of God than His Being. Every now and again I realize I've searched after word meanings or master-plans, and lost God in the midst of it all. One of my favorite quotes (as listed in Facebook, because we know that makes it legit) is from AW Tozer. It reads,
"The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilites of both can be explored."
I want to always focus on being in love with Him, not just knowing about Him and being astounded by it. The awe of God helps love, but doesn't solely create it. Anyway, I say all of this because I want your help with something. Yesterday I read 2 Samuel 6 and stopped once I came across the telling of a situation that had once baffled me, and I realized still does.
2 Sam 6:6-7
But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Izzah reached out toward the ark of God and took ahold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died by the ark of God.
Ya know that part in SNL during the news segment where they say over and over after each story, "Really? REALLY? Yeah..realllllly?" -That's how I feel. Now, if you read on, David was pretty upset with God as well. I was journaling about it, and asking God why He would be so upset when Izzah was probably acting out of mere reaction, and also in protection of His ark! Later I came to weak conclusion of perhaps its because we shouldn't act of mere natural (re)action when approaching God's presence and plans. Also, we need to have revelation of God's sovereignty and choice, as well as His plans and our having little to do with it. I'm not sure though, and I'm not confident with any of these answers. I want to know a solid answer, because I want to understand God more. I want to fall in love with more of who He is after I came to any sort of peace within myself as to why this happened.
Now, I looked up some things online, I read (and even glued in my journal) what John Wesley said, but I want to know other people's opinions! I really have to humble myself in putting this out to the public, because to be 100% honest (and admit pride, ha!) I get annoyed when people state the really obvious to me as if I didn't know. ...But as I said, that's my pride and I need to humble myself in it. I DO want people's WHOLE opinions.
Why did God kill Uzzah? Did David understand, because he was mad at God for it and wouldn't even move the Ark for a while because He was so scared. Was that God's intention? Or David's misunderstanding? ...I could go ooooooooon and on with questions pertaining to this-so please, read the passage and share an opinion! Pray and seek God, and maybe He'll speak to us all through it! Pleaaaaaaaaaaase :-D!
(Oh, and sometimes people comment on my facebook concerning blogs, you can comment on my blog even if you're not a user!)
Over and out.
i feel like Gods reaction was opposite to uzzahs and maybe Gods intention WAS to give david pause in bringing up the ark, cause he had given spacific instructions on how the ark was to be handled. I don't think God WANTED to kill uzzah, but it was important that all of the people realize just how serious he was about his holiness. maybe thats why. i doubt seriously that Gods intention was for anyone to be struck down because the unchanging God does not wish for any to perish. im certain that uzzah was waiting for jesus when he came to hell to preach the good news to the captives there. it seems to fit with the understanding of God given by the new testament and after all we should always judge the old by the new. he never changes and never goes against himself. his righteous anger at the mishandling of the ark was not necessarily just towards the one man who touched it out of panic. i believe it was towards all the people because they had forgotten who he is and what they were handling in such a manner.
ReplyDeleteIs God showing us our arrogance in thinking we can can help sure up his place has dire consequences? I think we bring death to our lives when we walk outside of His directives. It may not come as quickly as it did to Uzzah but it happens just the same. It also interesting to think of this in the context that David wanted to build a temple for God, God of course said who are you to build a temple for Me? I can hear the Jewish accent. (of course God is Jewish his son was, enough said) We are talking alot right now about being part of God's Story and not making God part of our story. I think this fall in that category. We think we know God's will even though he has told us something else so we run off and do it and WHAM your dead.
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