Have you ever wanted or needed something desperately?
I can think of bad and good situations when I very much wanted or needed something. Last 4th of July, I desperately wanted an ambulance to save my life. Last Christmas, I was very much wanting my mother in law’s apple pie. When I’ve had car trouble, I desperately needed help, and when Martha was past 8 months pregnant with Sophie, I was more than ready to see my little girl (and give my wife some bodily relief).
How do you feel when that which you so desperately wanted or needed arrives? That help to the rescue, that bite of the long dreamed for delicious treat, that little face you so wanted to see?
I know what I felt: a deep relief and an amazing joy.
That is exactly what the world must have felt, or at least should have, when coming face to face with the people of Israel. In the Desire of Ages, Ellen White says the following: “Yet God had chosen Israel… He desired them to be as wells of salvation to the world. What Abraham was in the land of his sojourn, what Joseph was in Egypt, and Daniel in the courts of Babylon, the Hebrew people were to be among the nations. They were to reveal God to men” (DA, pg. 27).
This is hard to understand for most of us. After all, we are blessed to live in a country were our biggest struggles seem to be not being able to go to the movies and to have to go to a couple of stores looking for toilet paper. Don’t get me wrong, I said “seem”. For behind the curtain of prosperity and entertainment we find the true picture or our state as human beings: deeply broken, deeply in need. COVID-19 and the increasing social unrest have highlighted this brokenness, many of us resist such revelation and keep fighting to go back to the illusion of how things were before.
But the truth is that we are in need.
Like the child about to be delivered, like the adult begging for medical assistance.
We need help!
And the interesting twist that White brings to the picture of the Christian life is that… are you ready? You and I are the much-needed help! Yes, you!
You are, in God’s hand, meant to be a “well of salvation”. What a refreshing, life giving, picture! But what exactly are you doing? You are “to reveal God to men”. That is what those around you need, and want (knowing or unknowingly) so desperately. A revelation of who is really their Father in Heaven. As you can probably begin to see, this revealing work goes far beyond the pulpit and the walls of the Church building. It goes into your home, into your TV/computer, your dinner table and your bedroom. It goes into your classroom, your relationships and your workplace.
You may ask: why is knowing God humanity’s greatest need? Well, because without knowing God we try to find Him somewhere else. Like the child of an absent father, we try to find dad in other relationships, or even worse, in stuff or addictions. But nothing can replace dad.
And the beauty of all this is, that through your Covenant relationship, you get to know Dad. Every minute of every day.
“You have put eternity into the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)