1 Kings 8:10-11
It happened that when the priests came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the LORD, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.
I don’t know why, but I am possessed by this passage this morning (or as we say in Oklahoma, “this smorning”). Two subjects: 1) the glory of the Lord, 2) the service of the priests.
Get this: the glory of the Lord overwhelmed the service of the priests.
Now this seems unfair to the priests. After all, they are only doing as God had instructed. Why does God come in and mess things up? “So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud.” They could not minister? Their religious candles blew out. The smell of incense was diluted. The ram got loose. The prayers were silenced due to a distracting and overwhelming noise. All that the Lord had been doing through them was brought to cessation as it was replaced with something else. Something breathtaking. Something that buried the service they had become accustomed to.
One priest went to a growing line before the king to log his complaint.
Another priest went home believing this excused him for day off.
Another priest looked at the glory with entertainment, happy to have the monotony of his days interrupted.
Another priest say to his friend, “Don’t believe what you see. This is not how it normally happens. We only adore the normal.”
Only one priest stepped aside to observe and partake in the awe and hope that was coming into being. Only one allowed the curtain to be rent, the locks to be broken, and the glory to be shown.
Theological thought: How often to I allow God to step into my life and do something different, something extraordinary?
How often do you? Or are we too set in the ways that we think the Lord must do things? But sometimes God is not ordinary.
7 replies to "Theological Thought of the Day: God is Not Always Ordinary"
Yep.
Another priest say to his friend, “Don’t believe what you see. This is not how it normally happens. We only adore the normal.”
That sounds like “methodological naturalism.”
Michael, this sounds suspiciously charismatic… is there something you’re not telling us? 🙂
Hey, I am trying.
What ever happened to historical exegesis, first? It does shape the proper theological!
Btw, I lived thru the whole Roman Catholic and Anglican charismatic renewal, in the 60’s and 70’s. Now its basically gone!
He comes to us in the “ordinary”…a word…a piece of bread…a sip of wine.
But in that coming, the extraordinary is truly possible. And we should expect those extraordinary things when God shows up…like faith being created.
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