So as part of the NCC challenge we have finished the book of Numbers and are onto the book of Joshua. When I first decided to start the garden to city challenge I was a little hesitant that Numbers was the first book I would be reading. As a person who grew up in the church the Torah was known as Genisis and the four other boring books in the beginning of the bible, oh and you have to throw in the Prince of Egypt (i.e. Exodus). In my 22 years of life, most of which have been spent being in and around church it is surprising to me that I have never actually read the book of Numbers, and as of now it is one of my fav books of the Bible. While there is a lot of number counting and rules on how and when to sacrifice (some of which can be tedious to read), there are also some very interesting stories.
First let me start by saying the beginning of Numbers Moses is commanded to take a census of the children of Isreal. While reading through this I was amazed at how many people there actually were, some six hundred thousand people. That is a lot of people, when I had read through I called my mom and was like "did you know there were over 600,000 people who came out of Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years, cause they definitely did not show that on the Price of Egypt". I call my mom quite often with things like this, in which case I'm sure 90% of the time she rolls her eyes. The last time I called her about something I discovered it was "Mom did you know there are dragons in the bible?" To which she responded "No there is not, it is probably your translation" to which I told her a couple days later "no there are dragons in the bible." Back onto the subject. As a child I always envisioned Moses leading a group of maybe 10,000 or 20,000 not 600,000 people. Not only did he lead that many people out of the desert but he had to listen to that many people constantly complain. One of such complaints was that they werent happy with the food they were miraculously receiving daily from Heaven. As I read I was thinking to myself, "wow seriously Israel this bread is raining from the sky and you are complaining?" But it made me wonder how often has God provided for me and I constantly complain of how I want something new or different. I do this constantly. I am the type of person who gets bored with things real quick and constantly wants something different. It is a complete shock and surprise that I have had the same phone for almost 2 years now, since I used to get a new phone almost every six months. So reading through Numbers I have realized that God has blessed me with so much, has constantly provided for me and that I should be grateful that I even have a place to sleep and food to eat. I think a lot of the time we take simple things like that for granted, and I think it is because we have spent our whole lives with such amenities.
Not only does Isreal complain quite often but the thing I found pretty amazing in most of Numbers is that when God pretty much says he is going to wipe them out and start new, Moses pleads with him to pardon the children of Israel. While God loved the Children of Israel and like most parents got a little sick of their complaining sometimes, Moses was there to step in on their behalf. Another thing I definitely noticed while reading was all of the sacrifices that needed to be made and the complexity of them. As I was reading I couldn't help but think "wow I am so happy Jesus came and made the ultimate sacrifice" my other thought was, "wow they have a lot of animals roaming around with them". But my main thought was how thankful I was that Jesus came and made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us.
Onto the stories. While there were many stories, my favorite was probably the story of Balaam's talking donkey as told by Mark Batterson. While many of the stories are good I think that it is the ultimate message that is conveyed in Numbers that is probably the best. As Pastor Mark said yesterday in Church the book of Numbers shows that it isnt about where you are going but who you are becoming. It is very interesting when sometimes you are going somewhere, you have a goal or a plan, and God blocks it. It is even more frustrating when you think you goal or plan has been blessed by God, yet he still blocks it. Everyone once in a while I like looking back and seeing what God has done in my life, I like to think things happen because of what I do when in reality God has a huge hand in things I have and the decisions I make. As I have gone through high school and college I look back on the way things have worked out and it is sometimes amazing to see why God has done the things he has done. For instance, why I ended up choosing to go to school in San Diego (I ended up rededicating my life Easter of my sophomore year), why I ended up in DC (I got baptized in November), these are big examples and my life is full of more of stories of what God has done in my life.
But the main purpose of this post was the Israelite's journey through the wilderness, and I think all of us have had some journey through our own wilderness and God has brought us into the Promise Land. For me, like my "spiritual bubbles," I have traveled through many wildernesses most of the time because of my own decisions, yet every time God has brought me through and has always been there with open arms and an everlasting love. What an amazing thought, that through anything and everything God will always be there waiting with open arms.
Well thats all I have for today, more to come!
-S
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