There is a
movement within some Christian circles to better recognize what the Celts
called ‘thin places’. Amy Becker said, “The Celts believed
that physical locations existed in which God's presence was more accessible
than elsewhere, places where heaven and earth seemed to touch, where the line
between holy and human met for a moment.”
A quick search online finds millions of references to thin places,
including guide books, maps and all manner of quasi-Christian and new age
writing about them. But while the
concept has been hijacked by modern spiritualists, it is definitively a Judeo -
Christian concept, rooted firmly in the Scripture. The Holy Land is not called the Holy Land for
nothing!
In Abraham’s
day, Beersheba was a lonely place in the desert. It was at Beersheba that Abraham called on
the Lord, planted a tamerisk tree and made a treaty with the Philistines (Gen
21:31). It was at Beersheba that Abraham
lived a long time (Gen 22:19), and when Isaac moves away from Gerar (where the
Lord last spoke to him), he goes back to Beersheba. As Genesis 26 records, “From there [Gerar] he went up
to Beersheba. That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am
the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will
bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my
servant Abraham.” Isaac built
an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent,
and there his servants dug a well.” [1] Later, Isaac would bless
Jacob at Beersheba, and much later, Jacob would encounter God there himself
(Gen 46). Very much later, Elijah
encounters an angel there (1Kings 19:3).
The question crosses one’s mind - was it that physical location or
something else that made it such a profitable place to meet the Lord?
As far as
physical location - Beersheba has been an inhabited place since Abraham’s time
(indeed, one of the oldest inhabited places on the planet). In fact, today Beersheba is one of the
fastest growing cities in Israel. As a
major city, it no longer has the look and feel of the lonely desert that
Abraham, Isaac or Jacob would remember. Besides,
there are many ‘thin places’. So it
cannot be a geographic point that is so very significant.
Yet because
it is out in the desert, one doesn’t have to go far beyond Beersheba to be
surrounded by the same wilderness that the patriarchs would’ve known. It was that sort of wilderness that Lord
Himself often withdrew to. Lonely places with no one else around (Luke
5:16). There is something about a quiet
place that people hardly ever travel to that allows a person to set their mind
on God.
Maybe that’s
because most places we go, we encounter some trace of the presence of other
people, be it a footprint, or a strand of hair, or - from a microscopic
viewpoint - some shred of DNA. But if we
go someplace where we cannot find even the smallest trace of people, we find
that God is already there. And the eerie
quiet provides the best backdrop to hear His still, small voice.
Perhaps next
time you your Sabbath rest, take some time to pray in a lonely place in the
wilderness. You might just find that God
is waiting to meet you there.
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