Today’s Scripture Reading (August 26,
2012): Numbers 33
Life does
not happen at all at once, even though sometimes we wish it would. Experience
never comes on the first day of the job. When we are young we often devalue the
need for experience; after all it only causes blind spots – surely the energy that
a young person has to devote to a problem is more important than any experience
an older person has to offer. But, usually as we gain experience we begin to
understand how wrong we were when we were young.
As
Christians, we often desire the same thing; we want a stageless journey. So, as
the journey begins, we want to jump to the end of the story. We want our
spiritual experience to measure up quickly to those who have walked the path
for a long time. But that is not the reality of any part of our existence. The Christian
life is a journey, a path that we walk. Our reality is that our spiritual
journey before Christ was a series of steps in certain direction. And the only
way to follow Christ is often to take those same steps back to the place where
we began.
Israel had
taken a walk with God. The path from slave to nation was not completed in a
single step – or even a single leap - but a forty year journey. And every step
of the way had been important. So God commanded that Moses record every stage
of the journey so that future generations would understand the process that
their ancestors had gone through.
Today is
another step on our spiritual journey. It is part of what is important about
our gatherings. The journey that Israel made, they made together. And we are
not journeying alone either. It is time to gather together and remind ourselves
of just that. Come, let us worship!
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers
34
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