Reading check-in:
I have a confession to make. I’ve been falling behind on the
reading program this last week. As of the writing of this post, I am somewhat
caught up. One thing I’m learning, though, is that the point isn’t to “hit” every
reading every day, on time. The point, as far as I’m concerned, is to be
developing the habit of reading the Bible regularly and getting used to doing
it every day. In the recovery aspect of my personal growth work, the mindset
isn’t focused solely on avoiding relapsing, but rather developing and
maintaining a manner of pure living, which over time, becomes an ingrained
habit to the point that a relapse will no longer “undo” all the gains made. I’m
applying the same mentality to my Bible reading.
I’ve generally white-washed this entire section of Scripture,
from the point the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, to the point when they
finally entered the Promised Land in Canaan, some 40 years later, as “the time
the Israelites wouldn’t shut up and stop complaining, and God got fed up.”
Sure, there were construction instructions for the Ark of the Covenant, among
other items, as well as the laws (basically the entire book of Leviticus, which
I rather enjoyed reading this time around). But, in terms of this part of the
history of God and His people, it could be summed up in the passage below:
Israel Refuses to Enter Canaan
14 So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” 4 So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.”
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
6 But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; 7 and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: “The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”
10 And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel.
I feel like this passage sums up the aforementioned swath of
Scripture that I’ve admittedly painted with a broad brushstroke. Here, it is crystal
clear that the Israelites could have entered the land in Canaan much earlier
than they did! A perfect opportunity! But, no, “we wanna go back to Egypt!
Waaahhh!!!”
I’m not going to beat them up, though. They ended up getting
what they deserved in the end, which was to spend the rest of their days wandering
in the desert and dying there, so there’s no reason to dump on them extra. I’m
also not going to beat up on them because I know what it’s like to be in that
place of utter lack of faith and nonstop complaining.
Ironically, as a child, particularly the second half of my
childhood, I would say I was likely to be remembered as “the kid that was chill
and never rebelled or complained about anything.” Most teenagers either rebel
or complain, and I imagine most of my peers did, whether it was at home or at
school. I didn’t. I had learned, to some level anyway, to comply, to suck it up,
to put my head down, and do the work that was in front of me. Which at that time
was homework, and a lot of it. It worked.
However, once it became apparent that I needed extra help actually
transitioning to adulthood, it involved (required?) a tear-down approach where,
among other things, I re-learned how to basically be a human being. Part of
that process, which I wouldn’t realize until it was happening, also included
going through “the teenage stage,” which apparently, I kinda didn’t do. What experts
once discovered and theorized and has since more or less become public
knowledge, teenagerhood (as I understand it) is the stage where a child is
beginning to test out his own voice and pursuing his own independence while
still in the very necessary constrains of home and school. Teenagers, very
simply put, are flexing the beginnings of their adult muscles. However, this
stage is also marked by a severe lack of maturity to react or handle things
well (at first, anyway), and for many this testing of their own voice and
independence comes out as complaining, and a lot of it.
When I was an actual teenager, that wasn’t me. But I now
realize that I also didn’t go through the other very necessary things that
accompany that stage, not until the second half of my healing journey. There
were circumstances and events that felt unfair, plus a few that even to this
day I believe were just flat-out wrong. But what I know now that I didn’t then
was that, like so many of those teenagers, I gave in to complaining. I may
still not have done it a lot outwardly, but my prayer life with God was
littered with complaints, to the point that it was every day: “God, why didn’t
You do this?!” or “Why did You let this happen?!” or “I’m unhappy
because You put me in this circumstance!!!” etc.
This went on for a year, for two years, for three years, and
finally, in the fourth year of my being in this stage, enough of the right
kinds of challenges arranged themselves in my life to shut up my complaining
and bring me back to my knees. Based on what I understand now, I do think that
is a key crucible to adulthood. The one silver lining of complaining is at
least the person knows that they have a voice and has the confidence to use it.
But it immediately gets outweighed by the fact that they lack faith and appear
to not care that they lack faith, or even don’t want to learn to develop
faith.
That’s the step that an entire generation of Israelites
either would not or could not do. Ordinarily, it would be easy and tempting to feel
sorry for them. However, the Bible also has made it clear that these same
people saw God do miracles time and time again. Scripture shows that these
people either did not trust God to keep doing miracles, and/or got upset
because the miracles that He was doing were not the type of miracles they
wanted to see. Sure, it’s “cool” to see an ocean get split in two so you can
walk through it. But it might not be as “cool” when you get used to seeing a
pillar of cloud (or fire) just hanging around instead of killing bad guys, or
when food that you might not think of as particularly tasty rains down in the
middle of a vast desert. And so someone (or a whole population) with what amounts
to teenager-level (im)maturity will choose to complain or rebel instead of grow
their faith muscle, because they hadn’t let themselves learn that there was so
much more to the God they followed than just what “cool” stuff He could do for
them.
Apostle Paul’s exhortation to the church in Philippi speaks
to this effect as well:
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Philippians 2:14-15, NKJV
It’s what I still must practice, on all fronts. On one
front, I still got The Girl, which is still awesome. But now that we’ve been together
for over two years, I’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like to be available-single
(not that I want to go back there again!), speaking to the fact of the novelty
wearing off, even for such a great blessing. Plus, on another front, I’m still developing
my faith/adult muscles when it comes to working in a corporate environment. While
I can boast a certain measure of growth and maturity in some areas, I see how
easily I can still get triggered in others. But at least if I continue to
remember the Lord (as it seems to so often say in the Old Testament), then I
can be assured that I will learn more things and grow some more.
I don’t know how much more I’ll be able to blog about my
Bible reflections. Things have gotten busier again, and I’m at the point of
needing to clear a few items off my to-do list for the foreseeable future. With
God’s help, I will exercise wisdom in terms of clearing what need not be on my plate
and keeping what should remain.
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