Mountains

I heard this quote yesterday in a video we watched in class, and I wanted to share: "If the mountain is smooth, you can't climb it."

Something, I know, I needed to hear and remember. If our lives didn't have bumps, we would never get any where.

Week 8: Community Rules and Celebrations

At the end of this week's reading Moses was commanded to conduct Israel's first census (Numbers 1:1-54 - how appropriate that it was the first act in Numbers! ha.). I added up the "number of men twenty years or older who were able to go to war" (Numbers 1:20-21), and that count came to 603,550. That is 316,400 more people than the current population of St. Paul, Minnesota - and that is just the count of the men 20 or older in Israel. Moses was probably leading about 1 million people through the desert! I had no idea. Every time they moved, it was as though the entire Twin Cities metro area was relocating - plus all of their animals! Can you imagine moving that many people and animals repeatedly over 40 years? I wonder how large the area needed to be for them to set up camp? The need for the commands in Leviticus is so plain - this was an entire metro area that was trying to create a new nation while on the move.

In this week's and previous week's passages, The Lord was creating a new culture for the Israelites to identify with and to call their own. There were new celebrations, customs and rituals (Leviticus 23:1-44) for the Israelites to be able to proclaim who was their Lord. These customs were a definable way for the Israelites to see that they were different from other people, that they were truly God's chosen.

My verses for the week are Leviticus 22:31-33:
"You must faithfully keep all of my commands by putting them into practice, for I am the Lord. Do not bring shame on my holy name, for I will display my holiness among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who makes you holy. It was I who rescued you from the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. I am the Lord."

The Lord called the Israelites to be his. He set forth rules, and celebrations for them to remember who had saved them from Egypt, who had promised them redemption. As Christ followers we are also the Lord's and he is ours - while our culture has evolved throughout time we are still called to be accountable to his commandments and to show others the love that we have experienced in him.

Week 7: More Instructions

I struggled this week being excited and interested in the text. The reading from this week covered text from Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and focused on the Israelites receiving and putting into practice commandments from the Lord for what to eat (Leviticus 11:1-47), how to request forgiveness for different sins (Leviticus 4:1-35; 5:1-13), how to offer up different types of offerings (Leviticus 6:8-30), and how to prepare the priests to serve (Leviticus 8:1-36).

So I started to think about all of these detailed instructions and two thoughts occurred to me:
1) The Israelites were a people, who while with a common heritage, had lived far away from the home of their ancestors for a long time. They had for hundreds of years been under Egyptian rule, and probably did not have group government or rules. The Lord provided them with both so that the would become a powerful people.
2) Since the fall, I think, God was pursuing his people and by offering up specific ways people could come before him it was a way to create connection between Him and His people. The idea of animal sacrifice is strange for us "modern day", but for the Israelites and their era, I guessing, it wasn't an unusual practice and would have truly been a sacrifice because animals were the lifeblood of the nomadic person.

One of the verses that I had marked this week has to do with instructions about sin, "When you become aware of your guilt in any of these ways, you must confess your sin." Leviticus 5:5. An instruction from God that has stood the test of time. We still need to be aware of our thoughts and actions, and be ready to confess our sins.

Week 6: So many instructions

I made a Tabernacle. I still have it, it's somewhere at my parents - maybe under my bed? It's pretty cool. When I was in fifth or sixth grade we had an amazing Vacation Bible School (thanks Rudy and Nancy!) that took us through Exodus. We escaped the Egyptians, crossed the Red Sea, danced as we were given the 10 Commandments, held passover in our tents, and built a small Tabernacle to take home at the end of the week. After reading the detailed instructions that God gave for this traveling holy place, I now see how short my not-so scale model falls against what must have been an amazing sight to behold.

In reading the chapters this week, I realized how interesting Moses' relationship was with God. Moses interceded for the Israelites, gaining God's mercy, when they built and worshiped the golden calf.  Later Moses questions God about his promise to go with them into the Promised Land (Exodus 33:12-33), and in response God allows Moses to gaze on Him in passing. Moses keeps questioning and God keeps offering reassurances. I think that this not only shows God's love for us, but his desire for us to trust in him. He is constantly seeking our hearts to save us from this fallen world.

My verse for the week is connected to the building Tabernacle, "Then I will live among the people of Israel and be their God, and they will know that I am the Lord their God. I am the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could live among them. I am the Lord their God." Exodus 29:45-46. I am so grateful that God sent his son in fulfillment of his covenant so that we were set free, and that God gave us the Holy Spirit to have God's presence among us all the time. We no longer have to carry about the burden of the Tabernacle to know God is with us.

Week 5: Pharaoh, Pharaoh. Oh, baby, let my people go free...

As I was reading the Exodus story this week, I thought about all of the childhood memories I have learning the story. Most of the memories are happy childhood Sunday School times studying how God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, how Moses repeatly when back to Pharaoh to ask for freedom and repeatly opened the door for God to demonstrate his power, and then who can forget the dramatic Red Sea crossing?

In thinking about the story about the plagues and the Red Sea crossing, it amazing to me how deliberate God is in his plan. God promises to deliver his people "...I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgement. I will claim you as my own people, and I will your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord you God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt" (Exodus 6:6-7). God's plan is to show his might to the Eygptians before he will lead the Hebrews to freedom. We see how Pharaoh's heart remains hardened and stubborn (Exodus 7:13, 8:15, 8:19, 8:32, 9:7, 9:12, 9:35, 10:20, 10:27, 14:8), while God works displaying his dominion over all things. Tied to God's strength and power is the verse that stuck out to me this week, "The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm" (Exodus 14:14). I needed to hear these words, I tend to want to solve everything on my own, and I tend to be very anxious about, well just about everyting. What a great reminder - and command - for me.

God's pursuit to demonstrate that he is Lord to the Egyptians (and Hebrews, I think), made we wonder how often do we play Pharaoh and harden our own hearts to God's call out to us? God may not be sending 10 plagues, and opening up the sea for us to cross, but, I do believe that he is continually revealing himself and his presence in our lives. It's just up to us to have open eyes, hearts, and minds. God will stop at nothing to have us with him, and his ultimate demonstration: He sent is own begotten Son to be the sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4:9-10). I pray that because we know God is powerful and that he loves in ways we cannot understand as humans, we may trust God to work through us in his time to reveal to us the amazing things he has planned for us.

Who is this God?

Well, I need to write about Job eventually so it might as well start now. Right away Job's story disturbs me because you have satan just hanging out with the heavenly court when they presented themselves to God. God and satan  have a little conversation in which God is basically bragging about this guy Job who is "blameless-a man of complete integrity." Satan says it's because of all his wealth, if God were to take everything away from him than Job would surely curse God to his face. So God tells satan to go ahead and do whatever he wanted to test Job except cause him physical harm. This starts Jobs first test where all his cattle were stolen, all the sheep and shepherds were burned up in a fire that fell from heaven, all the camels were stolen, the servants were killed, and all his children were killed. What is Job's response to this? He tears his rob in grief, shaves his head, and falls to the ground in worship to God. I don't know about you, but around this time most of us would be asking "why me?" not worshiping. This is Job's first lesson for us. Then what happens?

The heavenly court go to present themselves before God again and who just happens to be with them? Satan. He and God have another conversation where God brags up what a blameless man Job is. Satan says this is because he still has his health so God tells satan to go ahead and do whatever he wants to Job as long as his life is spared. Anybody else disturbed by this?! Who is this God? Is this the same God I have surrendered my life to? Is this the same God who I strive to honor and love with all my heart, mind, and soul?

First of all, it would be awesome if God was bragging up what a blameless woman I was and how I feared him. Not so awesome that because of that satan would be allowed to cause whatever harm he pleases as long as I'm not killed. To me it feels like a little game where Job is the pawn. Also, what in the heck is satan doing allowed to wander into heaven mingling with the court? He got his hinney kicked out of there! And let me just insert this little thought, I would much rather be suffering physical harm than watch my son or any other loved one killed. However, extended periods of dealing with physical ailments can cause a person great mental distress and induce severe depression. Job no doubt was struggling with this and didn't have much to fight for. Even his wife told him to give up and die!

Then what happens to Job? Well, his three good friends come to stay with him and after 7 days of silence, start accusing him of committing some sort of sin or sins to have caused all this suffering. Hence most of the rest of Job: his friends trying to comfort him by accusing him of wrong doing with Job steadfastly defending himself. Those friends should have kept silent! Reminds me of how if you are praying for healing and you don't see an immediate physical manifestation, some people will tell you it's because you have some sort of "hidden sin" that you need to be forgiven for. When you pray for forgiveness of your sins, they are forgiven by God "as far as the east is from the west," they are no more, you are forgiven, period. If there is a sin that you committed that you didn't know was a sin, it's still forgiven!

Even though I struggle with Job's story because of the portrait of God it depicts, there are some neat things that really stand out to me:

•  Job has a personal relationship with God. "Yet my friends laugh at me, for I call on God and expect an answer." Job 12:4 (emphasis mine)

• We have an assurance of what happens when we die, unlike those before Christ. "Can the dead live again? If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle, and I would eagerly await the release of death." Job 12:14
• But.....perhaps Job did know. "And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God." Job 24:26
• Look at how truths of the earth are revealed through scripture long before science.
• "God stretches the northern sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing. He wraps the rain in his thick clouds, and the clouds don't burst with the weight." Job 26:7 and 8  (emphasis mine). Job reveals right here, the earth is suspended in space. It is not some pizza resting on the back of a turtle or a great boulder resting on the shoulders of a mythical god. He also notes that the rain is in the clouds (evaporation is mentioned early in Job too). 
• We also see in Job that the earths core is liquid, "Food is grown on the earth above, but down below, the earth is melted as by fire." Job 26: 5 (emphasis mine).
• "For the water turns to ice as hard as rock, and the surface of the water freezes." Job 38:30. This is God talking now, but I can't imagine that a whole lot of people in the middle east knew this. Especially considering there are still people here in the states that can't believe the lakes freeze over enough for us northerners to drive out on it, put up little houses, and hang out and fish.

Here are a couple of verses that stood out to me:
25

"Who gives intuition to the heart and instinct to the mind?" Job 30:36

The last two chapters of Job give God's challenges to Job. God pretty much calls out Job, "Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them." Job 38:2 & 3 and 40: 7 Job's answer is pretty much how I think I would answer....basically, I'll shut up. This kind of bothers me too, the fact that God calls out Job. God is the one who was bragging him up to satan and letting satan do pretty much as he pleased with Job. I think Job had every right to take up his case before God. Also, in God's second challenge, two creatures are described the Behemoth and Leviathan. Footnotes indicate that the identification of these creatures is disputed, ranging from an earthly creature to a mythical sea monster in ancient literature. I find it hard to understand why God would describe a mythical creature as one of His own (...which I made, just as I made you. Job 40:15) if He truly didn't create it. To me these two beasts sound an awful lot like some ancient, massive beasts, oh I don't know, something like dinosaurs?
Job concludes with God calling out the three friends (and here is where Job gets some credit) by telling them they haven't spoken accurately of God as Job has. Because of this, God commands they take 7 bulls and rams to Job and offer a burnt offering for themselves and have Job pray for them. Once Job prayed for his friends, all that had been taken from him was restored to him twofold. He was even blessed with 7 more sons and 3 more daughters of great beauty. The only thing that strikes me about this is, even though Job was blessed with the exact number of sons and daughters as he lost, how could they possibly replace the ones that died? I wonder if there was a small piece of Job that was never fully restored.

So there you have it, my ridiculously long mental wanderings through Job. Though much was said, much remains unsaid. May we never fear bringing our case before the mighty Creator who loves us inexplicably, so long as or hearts are humbled and God is not our scapegoat.