As a teacher/counselor/minister, words are the conduit through which I do what God has called me to do. But there are so many words coming at me during the course of a day that I get overwhelmed. Emails, blog posts, texts, newscasts, snail mail…because of shear volume, these words start to matter less and less.
When our words don’t matter, campaign speeches become rhetoric, rather than commitment. Weddings become ceremonies rather than solemn promises. Court testimony becomes “so-help-me,” rather than “so-help-me-God.”
I remember an old black and white movie about a native tribe on an island. In the movie, this tribe was trying to appease their volcano god by offering up an innocent victim. I remember watching the screen as the wild-eyed natives walked their trembling victim to the edge of the volcano. Even as a kid, I thought, “What a harsh and demanding god!”
At first read, Numbers chapters 28-29 can sound much the same. But this is not what these chapters are about!
The Stock Market is not for the faint of heart, because it’s not a smooth ride. It’s a jagged journey of ups and downs. Likewise, marriage is not for the faint of heart, because it also is a jagged journey of ups and downs.
We all want our marriage to continually and consistently get better and better. If it were a a graph, we all want a nice, straight line that keeps going up and up. But marriage is not like that. It’s a little more like the stock market. It can be doing well one minute, and then there’s a change or some new information that rocks the boat and causes some jagged dips in the line. In fact, if you took even the best of marriages and plotted their satisfaction and happiness on a graph, the line would be jagged with many ups and downs.
Ever since Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, where they had everything they could want, people have been working hard to get what they want.
Working hard and acquiring things is not bad in and of itself. You can find many examples in Scripture of God blessing people who worked hard.
The problem is not hard work. The problem is assuming that what we have is a direct result of our efforts, rather than God’s provision. Jesus reminds us of this problem when He reminds us to look at how God provided for the birds. (Matthew 6:25-26)
It is God, and God alone, who provides all we need…as well as so many of our wants. (2 Peter 1:3) (1 Timothy 6:17b) (2 Corinthians 9:8-12) And it makes no difference if the need is large or small. God is the Provider of all…including the health, energy, and ingenuity to do what we do.
God’s provision is the theme of Numbers chapter 27. In the first half of the chapter, we see God providing an inheritance for five daughters of a man who died due to his own sinfulness. (Numbers 27:3) In the second half of the chapter, we see God providing leadership for an entire nation. Some might see the needs of the daughters as less important and pressing in light of the needs of a nation. But God treated both needs with equal care and concern.
This is God’s heart. He longs to provide for our every need. God calls us to work hard, but we should not confuse our work with His provision. May it be our heart to trust His provision. May it be our heart to trust Him.
When I was a kid, growing up in the country, my parents would take me mushroom hunting every spring. I know this activity is foreign to many, so let me explain…
You go out into the woods during the early spring, you look down at the ground, and you start walking hoping to spot mushrooms. Not much to it. But it’s not that easy. The ground is covered with leaves and limbs, making it very difficult to see the mushrooms. The mushrooms blend in with the leaves and are often covered up by them, so it takes a lot of looking and a lot of patience to spot the mushrooms.
