Elijah nevertheless asked that that last meal be given to him. The widow had been told by God to feed Elijah. But she pretends she didn’t hear! She complains that it is their last meal, as if God did not know that. Crisis makes it hard for us to listen. That’s why Jesus said in Mark 4.25 that those who can hear will gain more. At the time Jesus told that to His disciples He was getting ready to take them across a body of water. He said to them in Mark 4.35, “Let us go to the other side.” But amidst the journey a storm arose. Now they are going to pretend they did not hear what they heard, because it is not easy to really hear.
That day in Mark 4, Jesus had taught that when the seed of God’s word comes to your ears satan comes to try to steal it so you must hold tightly to whatever you hear from God. The famine and the storms are just illustrations of the attempt to steal whatever God says about you, to you and for you. Don’t forget the Word of God and who you are just because of a storm or crisis. It is not easy to keep hearing that word that says: You are healed; You are rich; You are strong. For if you hear then you have the word, and to him/her that has the word more blessings shall be added!
I am told that the eye has a kind of ‘memory’. Once when a piece of hot particle of metal was washed out of his eye a certain man says when that area of the eye was inspected he felt as if the metal was still there. That memory was more powerful than the present clean eye. One’s reality then can be a matter of perspective and memory.
Jesus and Nicodemus: John 3
This man was a member of the Jewish ruling Council who visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus praised Jesus: ‘No one can do what you do unless God is with Him’. Wonderful so far. Jesus proceeded to explain spiritual things to this man, but the man did not understand. Jesus said to him, ‘unless you are born again you cannot see...’ The point I am making is this: unless this man abandons his memory, that, everything he had been taught, his upbringing, prejudices, history, and becomes like a newly born he cannot see God’s new era. He belonged to the religious class that generally disapproved of Jesus but he could not help but notice that God was with the Jesus. Nicodemus was torn. That is why he came at night – trying to be with Jesus and at the same time maintain his ties with the system.
Jesus is saying unless you completely abandon the system you cannot understand. Start with a clean sheet!
I am told of a story in which a climber falls off a steep point and finally holds onto a rope or something that breaks his fall in pitch darkness. He prays for safety as he cannot hang there forever. And then a voice says ‘let go’. He was only a few safe feet of the ground but it’s dark and he cannot see this so he holds on all the way through until day break. His recent experience of falling was so strong that he found it too difficult to listen to the voice. Those who choose to hear no matter what will always win. Those who don’t wait for perfect conditions to listen but they are still waiting.
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