‘It matters where we begin.’ The Israeli shop-keeper told me. I thought I had asked a simple question, how to interpret the Hebrew inscription on my wedding ring. My wife and I had just been married in Tiberius, Israel, and my custom-made-to-size ring was in Hebrew, supposedly with the quote from Song of Solomon which they tell me is said in a Hebrew wedding ceremony: ‘I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me.’ That’s what the jeweler in the States told me it said, but I wanted to know from someone who actually spoke the language and had no stake in making a sale! For all I knew, I was wearing the Hebrew equivalent to ‘I’m a monkey’s uncle!’ The first person I asked looked at the ring, immediately took it to another, who took it to yet another, the shop-keeper in our Hotel, and they all looked at it with a puzzled look, until one of them pointed to a word on the ring, then they all turned to me and gave me the quote I was expecting. They also told me why it took so long to figure it out. The ring is a circle, and with no punctuation, you had to first determine where it begins. Then it’s easy.
Life is like that. It matters where we begin. The first words in our Christian (Hebrew origin) scripture remind us: we begin with God. (see Genesis 1:1-5) To begin anywhere else begins and ends in confusion. Life makes sense when we begin with God. And God begins making order and sense by beginning to literally put things into place. Light separate from dark. Day and night. Order, season, rhythm.
Every day we begin with God. We are given the power each day to choose light over darkness. We choose to set boundaries in wise ways, which give shape to a joyful way of life. God gave us such a tremendous gift when he gave us the power to make life-giving choices.
Scripture shows us how to make life-giving choices because we have a God who is a life-giver! Life at the beginning, life in the end, and life all along the way!
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