Now suppose they marry men from other Israelite tribes; then their inheritance will be taken from our ancestral inheritance and added to that of the tribe they marry into. And so part of the inheritance allotted to us will be taken away. – Numbers 36:3

Today's Scripture Reading (January 1, 2022): Numbers 36

Someone once said that "when you find no solution to a problem, it's probably not a problem to be solved but rather a truth to be accepted." Sometimes that is true. But there is another possibility. Sometimes, when we can't find the right solution, it might not be that there is no solution available, but that there isn't a perfect solution available. And often, if all we want to find is the perfect solution, then we won't find a solution at all.

As Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land and divide the land, a problem arose. The problem was that Zelophehad had died in the wilderness with the rest of his generation. But Zelophehad possessed no sons, only five daughters. And his daughters were afraid that because their father had no sons, they would not receive an inheritance of land in Canaan, and their father's name would be erased from the nation's history.

Moses had solved the problem by declaring that the daughters of Zelophehad could inherit the land that would have been given to the sons of Zelophehad if he had possessed sons. It was a great solution to the problem and one with which we can easily agree in our egalitarian society. But in Moses's day, the solution was a radical one and without precedent. But the solution brought up another problem. Suppose the daughters of Zelophehad married into another tribe. Under those circumstances, Zelophehad's tribe, Manasseh, would lose a portion of the land that should have belonged to them. Moses's solution had only revealed another problem.

Moses would decide that that problem could be solved by instructing the daughters of Zelophehad not to marry outside of the tribe of Manasseh. But even that decision would just reveal another issue, the curtailment of the rights of the daughters of Zelophehad. Maybe it is a small price to pay for the right to inherit land in Israel, but it was not a price asked of any of the males of the society.

Each solution to the problem just revealed another problem. The perfect solution simply didn't exist. Pastor David Guzik offers this advice concerning the daughters of Zelophehad.

Solving the problem of Zelophehad's daughters had created another problem – how to keep the property in a tribe through the generations. This illustrates an important principle – that there are rarely perfect solutions to problems; there are usually answers that are trade-offs in other areas. Maturity is able to make and accept the right decisions even when they aren't perfect, "cost-free" solutions (David Guzik).

Today we turn the page into a new year one more time. The year ahead will not be problem-free. But if we only want perfect solutions, then the problems we are confronted with will never be solved. My prayer for us is that we, too, will be able to find the maturity to accept solutions that aren't perfect or cost-free. I pray that we will have the strength to move forward anyway, through whatever it might be that this new year has to offer.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 1