As I was reading Exodus 27 with the specifications for the altar, the courtyard for the tabernacle, the clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning…before the Lord from evening till morning…a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for the generations to come…I kept trying to reconcile what was given so long ago to our ancestors with my present life in 2022. There was/is a reason for everything. I know there was a grave importance to the sacrifices offered by our ancestors. I know that blood could not save them. I know that I don’t fully grasp the sacrifice that did save them…that saves me. Sometimes it feels like a huge chasm between what I think I understand and what is true. God is Love. God is holy. I realized they are one and the same. God’s love is holy. There is no chasm there.

I imagined sitting at a campfire with God. Seeing the stars so vast its almost dizzying. Feeling the cool, clean air and the warmth of the fire. If you could sit at a campfire with Almighty God, what would you ask Him? I know what I would ask. Why? When? How? What?

Why did you create us? We are so unruly and so unholy and so stubborn. Why us? There are so many of us through all time and how will we ever get along?

When will the suffering end? When will you put an end to the ways of this world so unholy with love so limited?

How will it be accomplished…our change from what we are now to what you know we will be? We know we can’t do it on our own, but how will You?

What would you have me understand? You who are holy and love…what would you have me understand?

I asked God in prayer this morning to help me understand. Ancient Israel brought animals without blemish to be sacrificed because they sinned and needed a way to have that sin atoned for. The sacrifices were carried on daily. I remember watching a movie years ago that superimposed upon the image of the endless sacrifices of animals the continual, endless sins of the people. Sin without end.

Jesus knew in His ministry that the Cross was looming….the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29. He did that for me. He did that for you. His message is the same today. From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”. Matthew 4:17. There is a vast difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. Holiness and love. Sin. I realized this morning that not only are God’s holiness and love the same but they are healing and so beautiful just as everything God has made is beautiful and filled with His glory. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Psalm 19:1-4.

You and I can ask questions of Almighty God. Ask. Then open your heart to listen. Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:11-14. There is such peace in God’s holy love for you. When you grow weary of hurting turn to Him.