Home | Articles | Poetry | About The Author | Contact Us |
The Sunday before Passover was a beautifully mild sunny day with gentle breezes as I spent the better part of an hour walking along the foreshore of one of Adelaide's gorgeous beaches. This is my most favourite outdoor experience before commemorating the Passover each year. As I splashed my feet in the shallows there were many things to be grateful for including the fact that Daylight Saving had ended the same weekend of my beachwalk. Flipping between wanting to change the current rules to have things the correct way God made them, but then resigning myself quietly knowing that we must keep going on in this faulty way of living, even though we have come out of the world when God called us, we must continue to live in it and our calling makes everything worthwhile. Did you know that while the majority of Australia observes daylight saving hours for six months of the year, the north-eastern State of Queensland does not? It is always a delight changing our clocks back to the way God designed the time as set according to His will and purpose. How arrogantly proud humans are, thinking we know best even despite getting things wrong over and over again. Just plain ugly — but then that's carnal human nature for you, and we all have it.
While walking a memory from long ago suddenly surfaced causing me pain as I shuddered with disgust at my ignorant behaviour. December/January summer holidays back in 1973/1974 was the time there was an incident which was out of character for me. It was early evening when I wanted to walk on the beach. Dad had already gone back to Melbourne for work and would soon return again, my younger brother and sister were happy to watch TV while Mum was too ill to even think of coming with me — you see she was tired with the effects of late stage cancer ravaging her weakened body. Some memories are sketchy but I do remember being unhappy about something so I went by myself for a walk. Sounds simple enough for the beach was just across the road, only problem was I walked from West Beach all the way to the amusement park at the Semaphore jetty (a 26 km round trip) when it was becoming hazy with twilight already here as I turned around to head to our holiday unit. That meant walking all the way back after sunset. Hadn't thought of that and the last part of my walk was very dark and scary. There were no lights in those days like now, so I could hardly see anything around me. I was quite confident knowing I would not get lost as all the Adelaide beaches and their landmarks were well known to me since I was a youngster, however anyone could have abducted a young solitary slip of a girl under the convenient cover of darkness, meaning time and chance were definitely against me. Thankfully I arrived in one piece albeit my nerves were a bit on edge and was so grateful nothing untoward had happened. Humbling occurred during that walk after starting out with a rebellious attitude, and even then I believe God must have protected me.
If I could go back and have a redo I would, but whether my choices revealed a different outcome I do not know as it was almost 50 years ago and so much has transpired since then including my conversion. With a converted mind the decision would obviously be to honour my mother which mostly occurred but I could not truthfully say that I always said to her in humble obedience "I will do all that you say", as during my teenage years development of a stiff neck and hardened heart were unfortunately happening. The well known saying "if only" with the benefit of hindsight and Godly wisdom and a converted heart, are like pearls of great price (Matthew 13:45-46). Young people do not think things through as they lack experience and seem to be spontaneous despite the dangers out there. When I got inside Mum was sitting there all by herself looking sad and extremely tired for she most likely knew this may very well be her last summer holiday with us. She never scolded me but would have been relieved for my safe return. It is an understatement to say that when Mum is resurrected there will be tears. Such a sweet mother who suffered so much as a medical guinea pig (Dad gave consent) for the experimental Cobalt Blue treatment otherwise there was no hope in the Peter MacCallum Cancer Clinic all those years ago. Indeed Irene would die some 9 months later and I must live with the fact that I caused my mother further pain and suffering that could have been so easily prevented. She suffered in silence as there were no mobile phones back then, nor did she have phone access and was too ill to walk to a public phone box in the dark, let alone in daylight hours.
Disobedience is a bitter pill to swallow and the panacea to heal from this is surely found in the Bible via God's instructions to His Church. Reading about the miraculous rescue of the Israelites as they came out of Egypt in Exodus 12 - 14 is truly remarkable and gives us such hope and trust in our God who is God of all and nothing is impossible for Him as Moses and Aaron found out. During the days leading up to Passover this year my mind has been acutely aware of what transpired almost 2,000 years ago, for those events occurred on the same days of the week as we live through them in 2023. This helps with a rich fullness in piecing the sequence of events together and thinking of what Christ went through when we commemorated Passover; when He was wrongly accused in the mockery of a farcical "kangaroo court" trial secretly during the night, then all those hours following while brutally and cruelly tortured culminating in His death on Wednesday about 3 p.m. So much to meditate upon and even so there is only so far we can go to begin to imagine, but the extent of the excruciating pain is unimaginable as we read about the last hours of His life in Matthew 26-27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, and John 18-19.
In our life, the very best we can do is to willingly surrender our will to God in humble and faithful obedience, for we come into the world with nothing and we will surely leave with nothing. Our free will is God given so learn the lessons now in order to be serviceable to our heavenly Father in The Kingdom. The Truth for me is crystal clear and consistently there — Christ died willingly yielding to His Father's will in every aspect, in every way without sin for He was sinless. He suffered as a silent lamb led to the slaughter and was able to take joy in knowing that by paying the price in full for the sin of the world, that we would live, and that the penalty for death would be paid. Both physical parents God gave to me, Peter and Irene, are now long dead and waiting for their future resurrection despite not knowing it would come in the way it will because they were not called by God in this life. Those of you who still have your parents alive, you are incredibly blessed as you still have time to show them your love and obedience without any regrets, thus fulfilling the 5th Commandment (Exodus 20:12). Some of you may be caring for them and this is such an honourable and loving service you give. How beautiful this is to God. For those with parents and for the rest of us parentless people, our heavenly Father is infinitely worthy of our full and heartfelt obedience as is our spiritual mother, God's Church, and those faithful members, our older brethren, whom we have come to love, respect and think of as parental figureheads just like our own physical parents (1 Timothy 5:1-2).
We know that the opposite of disobedience is obedience and this is what we all strive for while we struggle at times with our carnal self wanting to have our own way especially when we are in pain, are tired, when time gets away from us, and when we do not agree with others. The Bible tells us to show obedience to God, as well as to our parents by honouring them for this is the 5th Commandment. That day so long ago setting out in daylight hours which faded fast leaving me walking in the dark, there was a rebellious streak in me because I thought I knew better than my mother, but came to realise through the sinful act of rebellion, that not only did I not know better, I had also put myself in danger. While we may think the Israelites were incredibly tardy causing anguish, with 40 years of longsuffering, testing God's patience during their wilderness years, it took well over 40 years for me to finally see my disobedient sin and error for I had slammed the door shut on past memories only to come to realise it needed to be opened again. Thankfully God revealed this to me most mercifully when I asked to be shown what I am blind to. This was part of my growth this year leading up to Passover under willing compulsory self-examination.
Hebrews 3:7-19 dutifully reminds us "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, "They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways". So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest'. Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion'. For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief". The Israelites were disobedient when they rebelled against God at the hands of Moses. They paid a huge price for their disobedience without being able to enter the Promised Land as documented in Numbers 32:11-13. Let us keep this in mind as we continue on in our journey and be like Joshua and Caleb — faithful and obedient servants to God. The link below to a sermon given by Mr. Rick Beam also proved to be most fruitful in my journey of self discovery under the watchful tutelage of Jesus Christ so that character is developed in line with our older Brother and Saviour.
https://www.ucg.org/sermons/repentance-validates-baptism