Grains of Sand

Google Images Whining was one of Israel’s biggest faults. It didn’t matter what God did for them, they always seemed to find an excuse to complain. As Moses goes over the instructions to the people on the eve of their entrance into Canaan he emphasizes the importance to remember all that the Lord has done (Deuteronomy 11:2-7) along with the importance of passing this information on to their children who had not experienced all these miracles as their parents had (11:18-21). They needed to remember and be grateful. Nobody azppreciates whiners—not even God. They are like mosquitoes buzzing in our ears and needing to be slapped—something God often did to His people. Moses's instruction to remember all that God had done was a call to the discipline of counting their blessings and thereby putting a halt to the annoying sound of constant complaining. In Deuteronomy 11 Moses focuses on the land that the Hebrews are about to take possession of. He says, in verse 12: “ It is a land the ...

Sani Emmanuel — Google Images Between Numbers 14 and 20, Moses and Aaron intercede for the people several times. I mentioned one of those incidents in yesterday’s post on Numbers 14. At the beginning of chapter 20, the two leaders once more “ stand in the gap ” between the people and God. Israel was prone to complain. That sounds unhappily familiar to most of us. But in Numbers 20, the stress of dealing with these miserable people finally gets the better of Moses. This time the people are complaining about the lack of water (a situation they would not have to deal with if they had not refused to listen to Caleb and Joshua’s reports and had entered the land of God’s promise. They are blaming God for something they could have avoided themselves!). Moses and Aaron gather the people together. God has instructed Moses to speak to the rock. Instead Moses strikes the rock twice. God delivers the water but He is not happy with either Moses or Aaron. I wish I had more of the detail of this ...

Google Images Joseph arrived in Egypt as a slave when he was seventeen. At the age of thirty he became Pharaoh’s right-hand man (Genesis 41:46). Thirteen years of slavery and imprisonment. We hear nothing about Joseph’s feelings about all that he went through—except perhaps for a brief hint when, as Pharaoh’s Prime Minister, he names his sons. The firstborn was named Manasseh, which bears a connection to the Hebrew meaning “forget.” Joseph remarked: “I t is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household ” (41:51). Was this a point of no return, the moment when Joseph put behind him any thought of returning to Canaan, or being rescued or released? With a wife and a family, his roots were now firmly planted in Egypt. The reference to “trouble” suggests that Joseph had just glided through all this with some kind of other-worldly detachment. He knew trouble. He’d lived trouble. He’d survived trouble. The birth of the second son tells us a little more. T...

Google Images If Jacob thought that he had escaped the intrigue by running away from home and going to live with his relatives, he was sadly mistaken. The lies, manipulation and deceit continued in his uncle’s home. He worked for seven years in order to gain the hand of Laban’s daughter, Rachel, only to end up with Rachel’s older sister, Leah. Then he worked for another seven years to finally get Rachel. This story is recorded for us in Genesis 29. But it is Leah that captured my attention this morning. Her father basically “sold” her into a loveless marriage. His excuse was that tradition dictated that the oldest daughter marry before the youngest, but it does sound like he bothered to find her a husband during the first seven years that Jacob spent working for Rachel’s hand. In any case, we see the hand of God in all this mess. “ When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren ” (Genesis 29:31). God gave her someone to love and someone who wou...

Ahhhh, life has returned to normal. The kitties were active very early this morning so guess who was up? Rather than just lie there, I turned on the bedside lamp and read the Scripture assigned for today. Habakkuk is only three chapters long, tucked away among the lesser known books of the prophets. Most people don't find it in their lifetimes, much less learn to spell it correctly. But it's extremely relevant if only because the prophet asks the same questions many of us do. Habakkuk's first concern is why God doesn't punish evil. Then when God announces to him that He is going to send Babylon to punish Judah, Habakkuk wonders why God is sending an even more evil nation to punish His people for their evil. In the end the prophet concludes that he needs to trust God that even when everything is bleak, black, and bad, there is reason to rejoice in the Lord because: " The Sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to go o...