Catching up in Numbers

I've let myself slip a little behind the last few days, but today I caught up. Actually I used the extra time I had due to canceling our Friday night Bible study, to catch up on my reading. Within today's reading were two sections which stood out to me.

In one passage, the Israelites have finished building the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle. They have finished receiving all the instructions on how to worship God. God himself, dwelling within a visible cloud, went on to lead them as they continued towards Canaan. There could have been no doubt that God himself was with them...... Yet, when they arrive at Canaan, 10 of the 12 spies cause the whole community to doubt that they could conquer the inhabitants of Canaan....

Reading their story some 4 or 5 thousand years later, I have a hard time believing their unbelief. These same adults saw the plagues against the Egyptians.....

Hmmm, I am thinking through my thoughts right now. Back when Moses was born and during the 80 years he was raised up to be their deliverer, were the Isrealites asking to be rescued? I am going to go check on that right now...... Be right back.....

I'm back..... In Exodus at the end of Chapter 2, while Moses is off in Midian, we find:
Ex 2:23-25 "During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."

I am thinking that perhaps the Israelites were groaning because of the oppresion and were asking for help, but they probably had different plans in mind than God had. What they had in mind was probably like me wishing to win the lottery. What God had in mind was more like me going out into a new career in a new city and carving out a good living for myself. When God showed up the Egyptians, they were thinking they had won the lottery and that they would head off to the promised land and that God would do the same for them there. Whenever they encountered any problems, any discomfort, any fear or danger...... they realized that they had not won the lottery after all. They had won the opportunity to go with God into a new life in a new land. Their opportunity would require them to become a military power. It would require them to govern themselves. It would require them to establish their own communities and culture. All of this would have been led and designed by God. But God set it up so that going into Canaan would not be as easy as marching out of Egypt.

I guess maybe this is why they kept longing to go back to Egypt. It may have been slavery, but it was easy. They did their work, the Egyptians provided their needs. No ambition needed. No dangers needed to be faced....

I can remember being an aerospace engineer, but not being particularly excited about it. Nor was I being used by God. As the programs I worked on winded down others went off in search of new opportunities. Some moved out of state or into new communities. I just stayed were I was. Unwilling or unable to force myself to go out and try something new and possibly harder. Eventually God allowed me to be laid off. 10 months of unemployment opened my mind to be open to whatever God had in store. Teaching was the new career, with the new battles to win and new territoryto conquer (and new education to obtain.) My current promised land is indeed a better place than where I was before. I am glad I did not insist on going back. God could have allowed me to go back and stay there...... until I died..... (well retired)

One footnote: At the point of my layoff in 1989, there was another engineer hired one week prior to me. He started one week prior to me only because at our hiring, I had to give notice to a prior employer and he did not. That other man was a dear Christian friend and our families go way back. I know that my mother was a little upset wher her boy was laid off and the friend's boy was not. It was God's plan. That friend is still there.

Worship Old and New

My readings for the last week or so have been in Leviticus and Numbers. Frankly, I am having a hard time finding much to think about. Other than one nagging thought: Reading the detailed instructions God gave the Israelites regarding the construction of the tabernacle, and the Ark of the Covenant, and the garments for the priests, and the detailed and specificity of how these things were to be used in worship...... It almost makes me wonder if it is the same God. Now before you accuse me of heresy, I know it is the same God. But the God of Moses, the God of the Old Testament required many specific acts of obedience of His people and He layed out a specific format for corporate worship. The God of the New Testament (same God) is one requiring absolute devotion without specifying the details of what that would look like as far as corporate worship...

The Israelites were only sometimes able to follow the rules of worship. Worse yet, it was possible to follow the rules for worship without having hearts in worship. Thus even their leaders could be missing the reason and purpose for the rules themselves - leading to hypocrisy.

Of course the modern (or post modern?) church has its own traditions, fomulas and 'rules' for worship. There is still the danger of following the rules and missing the object of our devotion - the reason to worship - our thankfullness for the person and works of God.