If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Matthew6:30-33
This is the same passage we looked at yesterday, but in the "Message" which is a paraphrase* Bible Translation by Eugene Peterson.
What I really like about this translation of this passage is the way in which Peterson unpacks the idea of "seeking first the Kingdom of God" because he's really linking into what I've been trying to say with "Reality Bytes":
1. Move from the pursuit of "getting" and respond to God's giving.
2. Understand the way God works: "Every good and perfect gift comes from Him." (James 1)
3. "Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions."
- Life each day secure that Christ is Risen and interested in you.
- Know that God has loved you long before you thought of loving Him.
- Understand that He provides our needs and not our wants.
The Greek word for "seek" (which Peterson translates "steep"**) implies making a careful search, doing a thorough investigation or research, it means "get immersed in your subject."
Jesus is calling us to become quiet enough to observe and experience the God of all creation and to live our lives under His care. When His Reality becomes our way of life (our bytes) then the shadow-reality of materialism will stop "biting" us.
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This brings us to the end of our "reality bytes" series.
I hope you have found it meaningful!
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(* Just a quick note on paraphrases: While one should never use a paraphrase translation (like "the Message" or "the Living Bible") in isolation, there is a lot of value in using the freer translations to give us a better perspective on the more literal translations. While "the Message" is a lovely translation, it is still the work of one person (albeit that he is a very gifted scholar and a very pious God-follower) and should always be compared with other translations for balance.)
(** The English word "steep" is a cooking word - it means to: imbue, immerse, infuse, ingrain, invest, marinate, permeate, saturate, soak, submerge)
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
