JUST FOR TODAY

Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, while it is said, ‘Today, when you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’” (Hebr 3: 12-15)

“The” rebellion, to which this passage refers, is the one of the chosen people against Moses in the wilderness (Num 16). But what is important for me just for “today,” as the author of Hebrews points out, is what was important to, and yet not recognized by, those in the wilderness. And that is, hearing God’s voice, or call, to us, in our “today,” wherever or however that is.

Let me not shy away from God’s voice today, made ever-so-stronger in the coming of His Son, empowering us to “share in Christ” in God’s loving, merciful being. It’s a bit uncomfortable, admittedly, that God calls me “today,” on this overcast Friday morning in Vienna, in the midst of various concerns… But it’s also invigorating, I’m thinking, that God is there, and wanting to meet me, in my “today.” So let me respond to Him, and re-connect with Him, this morning, in some heartfelt prayer, wherever and however I am. Let my heart not be hardened or “unbelieving,” – because His isn’t. Let me continue my journey toward Bethlehem, however “hardened” I may seem to myself, “by the deceitfulness of sin,” and by all my insufficiencies.

Thank You, God, for letting all of us “share in Christ,” and through Him in You, so that we take our “rebellion” where it belongs, to those and that outside of You, within our brokenness. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people of good will.