Forty
Forty is a lovely number in the Bible - it symbolises a time of preparation and letting God break through to/for us. Just some examples:
- Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days
-It took the spies 40 days to search out the promised land
-The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness
-Goliath taunted Israel for forty days before being killed by David
-Elijah walked for forty days to Mount Horeb
-Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness at the start of His ministry
Waiting is hard!
- We feel powerless and out of control
- We end up having to confront the worst in ourselves
- We often discover that our faith is shallower than we thought
Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. Waiting.
After the waiting came temptation - but I think the waiting can be tempting too. You can watch a lovely video and song about Jesus' fast and temptation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWKRhk-yYI0
As we prepare for Easter, there is waiting.
This waiting brings to mind the times we have waited outside an operating theater, waited for test-results, waited for a response to a job-application, waited for a lost child to come home, waited for forgiveness after an apology.
| Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." (Matthew4:1-3) |
