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Daniel 12:4
Daniel prophesies of people "running to and fro" (Daniel 12:4), which can mean that the people are "at their wits end." Each of us has felt worn out and at our wits end, as we are living through Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, when the pace of life is so fast and the complexity so great that both our time and our attention are precious commodities. Our focus is continually being pulled in many directions at once, and this wears us out. We simply do not "multitask" nearly as well as we might like to think. Further, each time we shift gears, it takes us longer to get up to speed in that new gear. This weariness only multiplies as we are forced to focus on more things. Consider this principle in light of Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness." The most important focus in our life is God and His project of forming us into His image (Genesis 1:26). This has to compete with potentially hundreds of other projects throughout any given day. Some are good, or at least necessary and some are time-wasters and energy drains. Yet, they all compete, and at times, our focus on God takes a back seat. God understood these limits of man, so He created a space of time—the seventh-day Sabbath—when essentially nothing was allowed to compete with Him. Time, though, is only part of the equation; the other part is focus, being mentally present. Any high-school student knows that he can spend a lot of time reading a textbook, but unless he is truly focused on the material, he will not get much out of it. God, then, instituted a prelude to His holy time, a day when, even though we still have to work, we are intended to gather our thoughts, to begin turning our attention, and to focus in twice as much on what life is about, not merely of what it consists. This way, when that sanctified time arrives, we are not still mentally at the office, or still solving the problems of the day, the last week, or of the next one. The Preparation Day is a day of "gathering" what relates to eternity so that we can properly ingest the spiritual manna on the holy day without distraction.
David C. Grabbe
Manna and the Preparation Day (Part Two)
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