Day 36, or February the 5th. Keep an eye open
for any elephants. Our thoughts today are rooted
in Leviticus chapter 11, verse 2. Say to the
Israelites, of all the animals that live on land,
these are the ones you may eat. First the big
picture surrounding this verse. Many Jews today
still follow the kosher laws of their ancestors,
and prepare their food as ancient Jews did. We
have to remember that these people who were being
led by Moses were from the most sophisticated
country in the world at that time, Egypt, so
they knew nothing about living as nomads. They
needed all the help they could get, so they wouldn't
eat the wrong things as they wended their way
to the promised land. These rules, like so many
others that God gives us, are not to impair our
progress, but to help us to achieve success and
keep us safe. Rules about circumcision of baby
boys are specifically recorded too. Circumcision
must be carried out on the eighth day after the
birth, and an appropriate offering made following
the period of purification, which varied depending
on whether the child was male or female. It is
very likely that the eighth day is the ideal
one, as the congealing quality of blood is at
its best by then. The timing was critically important,
so God was really precise. And now our action
step for today. These early dietary laws were
well known to Jesus and will have been in his
mind in Matthew 23, verse 24, when he said, Blind
guides, you strain your water so you won't accidentally
swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel. Of course,
swallowing a small insect wouldn't harm them,
but they needed to strain out the gnat because
it was not kosher, as this part of Leviticus
makes very clear. The point Jesus was making
was that we often fail to see the elephant in
the room, to use a modern analogy. We concentrate
on the minutia and leave the big things to dominate
our lives, usually to our detriment. Why not
step back occasionally and see if there are any
elephants in your life? See any yet?