Like many of yours I am sure, my last few weeks have been among the oddest in my life. The Covid 19 quarantine has put a giant kibosh on life as we knew it.
I welcomed the uninterrupted days with open arms. No place to be. No schedule to mind except the normal meals, cleaning and making sure the laundry is done before dad gets home.
As the time has continued however, I have gotten anxious, antsy, restless. Since all of my employment is on hold, my mind has been in overdrive, filling in the blanks with the most horrible possibilities.
I started the year with the goal of reading all the way through the Bible again and a few weeks back came through Numbers.
One verse jumped out at me and keeps coming back to mind often since.
Numbers 11:23 “The Lord answered Moses, Is the Lord’s arm too short?” ……
I’ve gone back several times and read through the story again. The children of Israel had just come through some pretty amazing stuff. Not only had God parted the water for them to walk through and escape from their enemy, the mighty Egyptians, He had also decided to show them he was with them in visible ways by putting a cloud down over the tabernacle to guide them. At night it looked like fire. How’s that?? He also rained down their breakfast, lunch and dinner straight from heaven.
Somehow though the people got grumpy at their diet, their surroundings and life in general and decided it’d be better to grumble and beg for what they didn’t have. Verse 1 says they complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord. He got pretty unhappy and sent fire down to devour the loudest grumbler.
Do you think they learned their lesson?
Nope!
The grumps and dissatisfaction continue.
We want meat, they cried. “If only we were back in Egypt”…Give me a break people! I mean really??!!
Moses invites God into discussion. God informs him of his plans to give the people more meat then they can fathom, so much so in fact, they will vomit at the very thought of eating more.
At this point, Moses responds probably similarly to how I’d think.
But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”
It is here God responds with the verse that keeps coming to my mind.
“Is my arm too short?”
And with that he literally rains down meat in the form of quail falling from the sky.
We all know the answer. We can all agree that God will take care of us.
But do we flesh that out by how we live?
We all have needs.
Financial hardship.
Emotional baggage.
Loneliness.
The list could go on.
When times of adversity and trial come, is our faith strong enough to keep believing in the God who continually cares for each of us daily just as he did for the grumpy Children of Israel?
Or do we slap him in the face by doubting he can take care of us?
Take courage today! God is not in quarantine and will continue to care faithfully for you!