Entry #2 An Aha moment

And tonight, I took Philip to Jacob's Well. Tim started a three week series on identity and the community at Jacob's Well. Amid a wonderful sermon, he mentioned that sometimes it happens that our own memories of past manifestations of God can keep us from experiencing what God is doing in the present. He used a biblical example that I never remember hearing before. He reminded us of the passage in Numbers where the people had been punished for their sin while in the desert by poisonous serpents that bit them. God provided a way to avoid the inevitable death from snakebite for the people by having Moses place a bronze serpent on his staff. When the people looked on it, they would live (Numbers 21:9). This staff became, understandably a sacred object to the Israelites. After the time of David, when the good king Hezekiah began to reign, he destroyed the sacred places where idols were worshiped and "he broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it." Well, I'll tell you what, THAT WILL PREACH! Just what in the Church do we continue to we worship in place of God? And what things of old do we need to put away, if not destroy, because God is trying to wake up to THIS moment? Wow. And when do we need to hold on and when to smash (well, at least let die a quiet death). And when are we too quick to put to death some things that we may should keep? Hmmmm