Having read yesterday’s devotion, we know that the people are now crying because they are afraid. But their fear is not rational, and it lands them in real trouble.
In this reading from Numbers there are some real gems. I don’t think that the human race can be any more hard-headed than the Israelites were. Unfortunately, I don’t think we can much less either. It’s one thing to be afraid when you don’t know of God, but to live in His presence, and see Him working all around you and yet still refuse to do what He asks because you don’t believe in His ability is apparently more than God will put up with. You and I live in that environment; God is working all around us, we acknowledge His influence in most of what happens in our lives, and in our church. So, if God asks us to do something, then we should be quick to respond favorably…because refusal based on fear only reveals our lack of faith in Him, which will not go well for us.
I noticed as I read today that the 10 spies who brought back a bad report died instantly. I wonder how much thought went into selecting the spies. Were they chosen because of their ability to blend in, or sneak around….or because they seemed able to survive on their own? I wonder if the people would have chosen different spies, had they known the outcome of their miserable report? I wonder if any of this applies to us today when we are selecting people to lead the church. What if we pick someone because they are popular, or have been around for a while, and not because they have a connection with God and a spiritual gift of leadership from the Holy Spirit? Could we be setting ourselves up for a bad report?
As I read down through the details of the sacrifices and offerings I thought to myself “who cares? I’m over 20…I’ll never see that land anyway”. But maybe that’s the point. Coming so close and then leaving empty handed would have a person pretty depressed. Maybe God telling them that they should offer grain and wine (which they didn’t have now) would create hope. It would be just like God to talk about the quarts of wine you were going to pour out as offerings when the only thing you had to drink was water. At the same time, this command spells a change in mission for the community. Once they were the invaders and conquerors…now they are training the people who will invade. A new focus on training up the next generation must emerge. They must be taught to have great faith, and never doubt the Lord, and to keep His commandments always. 40 years of training should do the trick, maybe that will be enough time to change the culture.
But it begins almost immediately. When a man is found violating the Sabbath, he is executed. We learn a powerful lesson here: intentional violation of a known law of God equals separation. Recorded above this account are offerings for unintentional sins. Ah-ha. There is a distinction being made between intentional and unintentional. I’ll blog about it later, since it is bound to come up again.
Psalm 90
verse 12 stands out to me. “teach us the brevity of life so we may grow in wisdom”. The wise realize that life is short. I woke up this morning thinking of a stanza from the 103rd psalm “as for man, his days are like grass”. The only right response before God is to acknowledge our profound inability. We can’t survive more than a moment on our own, and we can accomplish nothing without His help. We truly are thin and feeble and so very temporary. When thinking of God’s ability there certainly isn’t any room for pride. As a natural reaction to this realization we should begin to both praise God and request His benevolence. I suspect that this is the chief purpose of man, to interact with the Father in this way…acknowledging and praising Him as we learn more about Him, asking to know more, and asking for daily help. When God created us, I think this was the natural rhythm of life, the pulse of request and response that kept our hearts beating and our spirit satisfied. Moses is demonstrating dependence and humility.
Faithfully,
PR