Friday, 14 March

You are children of the Lord your God. You must not lacerate yourselves or shave your forelocks for the dead. Deuteronomy 14:1

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Galatians 4:6

Verses describing us as “children” can make us seem like God’s little ones, dependent and protected as infants are today. But in the ancient world the family was the basic unit of society, whatever your age. Where there were no police, no companies and no system of courts, authority lay with the head of the family. Sons, grandsons and great grandsons, together with their wives and slaves, were under his rule. He was accountable for them, and they to him. Village courts and councils were gatherings of such heads of families. Codes of shame and honour made the system work.

So these verses are about God’s grown up children, bound to God by their code of honour. Cutting yourself and shaving your forelock was behaving as though the head of the family was dead, but God was very much alive. Acknowledging God as Abba was to give the most intimate allegiance, to do what an adopted child would do when showing acceptance of an unbreakable relationship with the adoptive father.

God, I don’t ask to be your little child, sheltered and protected:
let me be your grown-up child, not vainly waiting for a sign but using the wisdom and good judgment you have given me;
let me accept life’s joys and pains not as worries to be hidden from, but as realities to be confronted as I draw from your strength;
let me defend the honour of your Name, resisting the injustice, exploitation, want and hopelessness that shame your world.

David Goodbourn

Chorlton Central