Be Careful What You Pray For; Num 14-15

May the mumbling commence!

Be careful what you pray for – you just might get it.  In Numbers 14, Israel responded to the gloom and doom reports of ten of the twelve spies, who went to the Promised Land.  They wondered why they did not die in Egypt or the desert if they were only being sent to die at the hands of the Canaanites.  They thought a better plan of action would be to return to Egypt with a new leader at the helm.  Be careful what you ask for!

Joshua and Caleb voiced a different perspective.  The land is exceedingly good and flows with milk and honey.  The Lord is pleased with us and will lead us to victory over them.  Any protection –either by strength of city walls or by strength of warriors or weapons – is useless against the Lord.  It might as well be counted as gone.  There is no reason to fear.

And God echoed the view of Joshua and Caleb.  God asked, “How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?”  God was ready to erase the slate clean once more by destroying all Israel with a plague and make Moses into a great nation – much like when Israel had worshiped the golden calf.

Moses could have chosen to give Israel up.  He, too, had become discouraged with the people.  And the Lord was promising him great blessings.  I wouldn’t have blamed Moses for agreeing and walking away from his leadership of the Israelites.  But Moses shines through with another act of servant leadership.  Moses interceded again for Israel – the same people who so recently confounded him and made him wish for death. 

Moses interceded by reminding God that His name was on this people.  If God were to destroy Israel on the cusp of the Promised Land, the peoples of the world will think that God could not bring them to the Promised Land after all.  Moses asked God to continue to be slow to anger and to abound in love and forgiveness.  And God relented again.  God forgave, but Israel would have to bear the consequences for their prayers.

God swore that none of the people who saw His miracles in Egypt and in the desert would enter the Promised Land.  Then God sent them on their way back into the desert, towards Egypt.  Isn’t that what they had chosen for themselves?  Be careful what you ask for!  I can almost hear the spiritual GPS say, “recalculating…”  God promised them a recalculated journey of forty years, one year for each day the spies were in Canaan.  That’s a generation.

Remember how Israel asked to die in the desert or in Egypt.  They are getting exactly what they asked for.  Be careful what you ask for!  And the death began with the ten spies who led Israel in this rebellion.  These spies were struck down with a plague.

Then the people of Israel scrambled.  The Lord meant business.  Now, they were ready to take Canaan – too little too late.  Moses counseled them not to disobey the Lord again by going up.  God would not go with them, and they would be routed.  In their presumption that their late fervor would make up for their earlier lack of faith, they went up anyway.  The Amalekites and the Canaanites made short work of them.  They got just what they thought would happen.  Be careful what you envision.  “Recalculating…”

God told them that their children that they had thought would be made into slaves would be the ones who took the Promised Land.  Our powerful Lord will surprise us and exceed our expectations.  God has always been with His people, and God does not change.  I give thanks for the Great I Am!

In Numbers 15, I find myself a little worried when I read about intentional sins.  Most people are intentional sinners, at least with some of their sins.  In this chapter, there seems no pathway back to God when one intentionally sins.  The guilt remains.  I am grateful for the perfect Lamb of God, who makes the only pathway back to God after intentional sins.  It’s a humbling thought that without Christ Jesus all are lost.  I am nothing without the love of God through Jesus Christ.  May that love light shine through me to all those people around me.  And the rules are not to be different, whether for the native or alien born. While the Israelites were to wear tassels to remember the commands of God, I wonder what our choices of clothing say about our commitment to the Lord..?

Enough mumbling for now…  

Peace Out