Numbers 11:33
There has been a thought rolling around in my mind the last few days. Well if I want to be totally honest, Good Lord! There are way more than a few rolling around in there. I will stick to the few because the others probably need to be brought captive and made to obey Christ!
I was reading in Numbers about the Lord’s provision and care for Israel. He led them with fire by night, a cloud by day. He caused their enemies to be scattered from before them, and yet the people grumbled and deplored their hardships. The Lord was angered and fire came and devoured those in the outlying parts of the camp. (Numbers 11:1) The people cried to Moses and when Moses prayed the fire subsided. The story goes on where they are remembering the dainties that they had eaten in Egypt, the fish, the bread, etc….
They continued to cry out for more. They thought they knew what they wanted, what they needed. You keep reading and come to verse 33. The Lord had given them exactly what they were crying out for, but it says in verse 33, “while the meat was yet between their teeth”, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote them with a very great plague.
Ok, so where in the world am I going with this? Well for one thing I remembered today that it helps me when I get to the tell the story. I am helped when I get to help someone else and process through instead of just being the one hearing all the time. The absolute majority of the time when I share something it is not from a place of having fully conquered it, but, from the “process” of conquering it! With that said, here I go back to my rolling thought. I think sometimes the things I am trying to obtain or hold onto are in my best interest. I want them; my heart hurts because I don’t have them. I don’t understand what has changed in this relationship or that one. I don’t very often think, “Wow this could be part of the Lord’s master plan to work in my heart, or work something out of it.” I view it completely from a human perspective of why are they? Why aren’t they? Doing this that or the other? Well in the midst of my mental gymnastics I quietly began to think of this scripture in Numbers and quietly found this prayer rising up in my heart today. Oh Lord, I think I know what is best for me and I think I know what I want and need. Right now God I am not convinced otherwise that this isn’t the best for me even though I am praying this prayer. BUT, God would you be the good Father that you are and not let me push you over! Will you please not give in to my tantrums and my heart felt cries of what I think I need and want? If you tell a child no, or you don’t give into what they want because you know something more than they do, they do not understand that no! All they know is you said no, and they are going to cry and genuinely have heart ache about it. I just said Lord please I don’t want you to give me what I believe I need or want right now if you know it will destroy me. Please be the “Strong One” that I know You are.
You see, in the very next verse Numbers 11:34, it says the place where they were destroyed with the meat between their teeth was called Kibrothhattaavah (the graves of sensuous desire), because there they buried the people who lusted, whose physical appetite caused them to sin. Sensuous desire and lust are not only to be viewed from a sexual standpoint but also anything that I desire to satisfy the longing only God can..If I have heard that one time, I have heard that a thousand in these last few years. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I fail miserably! I want to get it all the time but I have to allow the shakings of my soul to continue until He shakes everything that can be shaken. Maybe I will write a little more at another time on the shakings, and what that craziness can look like. I want to stick to the above thought for now. Thank you for allowing me to process with you! : )
Lord, be the strength of our life and the satisfier of our soul, in Jesus name.
The song that I kept hearing today as I thought through this is by Justin Rizzo, “The Weight and Glory”
