Over the past weekend I was among 40+ leaders in our local church at the Naamaroo Conference Centre - a great venue surrounded by National Park land with plenty of opportunity for bushwalking and reflection. As I wandered on Sunday morning I was reading the Oremus office for the previous day and kept coming back to these words from Micah7 (vv 14 and 18):
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old... Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.
I had with me Te Paipera Tapu - the Bible in Te Reo Maori - the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. As far as I know this is basically the translation made by predominantly British missionaries in the 19th Century - as there is no notation of revisions in the frontispiece. I find benefit in reading scripture in a language I don't know (especially a phonetic one like Maori) as it somehow reaches through my intellect and connects at a gut level.
The last part of verse 18 reads: ... no te mea e ngakau nui ana ia ki te tohu tangata. In this case I know enough Maori to know that ngakau nui is big heart. And tohu tangata is a subject people. I think this means that Godde has a big heart toward the people of Godde.
Ngakau nui will be my updated mobile phone banner for the next while (I noted the other day it is still Lent for Life but we are well past that season of the church year). As I delight to know that Godde delights in showing clemency. That word is so precious.
3 comments:
God has a big heart.
Amen.
Indeed
That is beautiful. Thank you.
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