a child of god
this is the way, run in it
Rosemary, my 84 year old friend and prayer partner, is a retired nurse/midwife/nurse assistant to eye specialist doctors, who lived and worked most of her life in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She is imminently sensible; she is also bold when needed. And she knows when it is important to do or say something and when it isn't.
For instance, she had to go to the doctor this week. He diagnosed her with a possible virus that is making the rounds and showing up in muscles, etc, and wrote out an order for a blood test to see if this was correct so he could treat it properly. When Rosemary went out to the desk to get it scheduled, they gave her a date two weeks later. As a nurse, she knew this wasn't helpful, as the doctor wanted to know the results so he could treat it. She politely asked if there wasn't anything sooner, and said he thought it was important. This was towards the end of the day, there weren't any other people there waiting on the nurse who took the blood samples, so they made a phone call and she was given permission to go in right then. When the nurse saw her, she said, oh, I might have guessed it was you! Rosemary knew the ropes and what to ask for and when. Later when she was given a follow up appointment with her doctor, the person at the desk tried to schedule Rosemary in quickly, but Rosemary said, that's not necessary. Make it two weeks later; give the meds time to work. What struck me about this is the timing of it all. The people out at the desk didn't know Rosemary's situation and were just processing her like they would normally, doing what they could. Rosemary knew the timing was important on the first test, and that waiting was important on the follow up appointment. In our lives, we need to know when it is important to push or ask for things sooner rather than later, when to act, and when it is important to wait. Timing is important, especially in the kingdom of God.
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![]() I find the early section of Numbers a bit painful to read. The people of Israel keep getting it spectacularly wrong. And it looks all too much like human nature to be comfortable to me. So in Numbers Chapter 11 we had them murmuring and complaining about not having any meat to eat - in the middle of a desert expedition! And now in Chapter 12 we have two of the three main leaders murmuring and complaining against Moses, the other main leader. And boy, do they get in trouble! Miriam and Aaron are complaining away to each other and saying, "Huh! Is Moses the only one God speaks through?! Doesn't He speak through us as well!" And the Lord heard them. So God speaks to Moses, Aaron and to Miriam and says, "You three come out to the tent of meeting to Me." (I wonder if they knew what was coming? Could they hear a tone in God's voice?) And He starts speaking to them, building up to what He is going to say to them, "Hear Me now. (You say you hear from Me, well, get ready.) If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, will make Myself known to him in a vision, I shall speak to him in a dream. It's different with My servant Moses. He is faithful in all My household; with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly and not in dark saying, and he beholds the form of the LORD. (I'm sure at this point Miriam and Aaron were trembling in their boots.) Why then were you not afraid to speak against My Servant Moses?!" And the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed from the tent of meeting. Now, Miriam is immediately struck with leprosy, so severe it covers her from head to toe. Aaron cries out to Moses and begs him to forgive them for sinning and acting foolishly and begs that he help Miriam. Moses, humble Moses, even though he has been disrespected by Miriam and Aaron, cries out to God and says, please Lord, heal her!" This is the bit that I find instructive today. God says to Moses, if her earthly father were disciplining her, wouldn't she have to bear her shame for 7 days? So let her be shut up for 7 days outside the camp (the law for uncleanliness due to leprosy) and afterward she may be received into the camp again. When we get in trouble, and we are let off the hook, we tend to not treat the whole thing as seriously as we should. Good parents know this and they discipline their children with fairness but with justice, so they learn the correct way to behave. God is saying, where is My honor in this if I let her off without paying the penalty? Where is the justice and rightness in that? And get this! - the whole camp, all the people of Israel, could not strike camp and move out following God until Miriam's time of paying the consequences of her sinful action was complete. They all had to wait, and couldn't move forward, until the right thing was done due to one or two people's actions. That is sobering. We sometimes don't want to think about the ripple effect our actions cause, but they are there. And God is true to His word. After 7 days, Miriam is healed, and she returns to the camp, and then they can move forward together. For the last six years, I have been going to the annual conference held by the World Prayer Centre. They hold the conference at a conference centre in rural Derbyshire. My friend, Rosemary, has been going some 25 years or more to it. The first year she took me along, she explained what it would be like, the type of schedule, and then said, right, I'll leave you to it, go make some friends and pray with anyone. It was a bit like a boat that is towed out to sea by a little tug boat, that then cut it loose and went away. She had people to see whom she hadn't seen in a year and God opportunities for prayer to discover. And so did I.
The first meeting was was unlike any other I had ever attended. Rosemary was the only person I knew there, and yet, it felt like I had found my people, a tribe I belonged to. These were people who prayed like they meant business - everyone all at once and like they were agonizing alone before God in the privacy of their own home. We worshipped hard, prayed hard, took in lots of information, and chatted with each other over meals and tea breaks. I loved it. It was rather intense, however, and I told the Lord, "Lord, I need more spiritual stamina!" Each year, God has spoken to me personally at that conference. And as the year has unfolded, I have seen the things we have heard and prayed about at the conference happen. I call that time at the WPC conference "strategic" for prayer people who watch and wait before the Lord to see what He would like us to pray about. Setting the Scene: It's the people of Israel, in the wilderness, after the Red Sea deliverance from Pharaoh and his army by God's amazing power. Not only did Pharaoh let them go, he and his people begged them to leave (who wouldn't after 10 plagues?) and gave them gold and goods to take with them. God has also provided manna to eat and water to drink in a place where there was nothing else.
We'll skip over Leviticus and the first 10 chapters of Numbers, where God taught Moses and the people how to be a holy people who belonged to a holy God, with detailed instructions on how to construct a tent of meeting where He, the LORD God, would dwell in their midst - a cloud hovering by day and a fire by night. They could follow God by day or by night, whenever His cloud set out, they were to strike camp and follow, stopping when He stopped. He also provided a balance pattern of life for them (Leviticus 23) including work, rest, the Passover Meal, offering to God from the first of one's produce and providing for the poor, a call to arms, the Day of Atonement and humbling oneself before God and the Feast of Booths - a time of celebrating. And we are in Numbers, Chapter 11. The cloud of God lifts off the tent of meeting and they are underway, heading out on a great, big, God adventure! And the people blew it. "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity..." (v.1). When the going got tough, the people started to complain and murmur. And this came to "the hearing of the LORD and his anger burned against them." Their disrespect, lack of gratitude and lack of trust broke their relationship with God and some of them died. What I find interesting in verse 1 is how it says they became like those kind of people who complain... So they weren't like that to begin with. But something or someone caused them to become complainers, people without grateful hearts. Verse 4 talks about this in an oblique way. It says, "and the rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, "Who will give us meat to eat?" It only takes a few bad apples, to corrupt the rest. We should be careful who we listen to. So the people wanted meat. They were remembering all the luscious food they had in Egypt, while conveniently forgetting the slavery and back breaking work. As an allotment person, the list sounds luscious: the fish, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic..." but what are we hankering for there? Moses, seeing God's anger at the people's attitude, goes to talk with God. He's about had enough, as well! He says, what did I do to deserve these people? (Have any of you leaders ever felt like that?) Did I conceive all these people? Moses is basically saying he isn't responsible for them, God is. And what does He want Moses to do about it? Moses goes on to say, How am I to feed 600,000 people? Where can we find that much cattle? And what does God say? This is the BOOM moment for me. God says, "Is the LORD's power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not" (v.23). Yes, God is big enough! Yes, God's power is almighty and unlimited! He is the creator of the universe, after all. Do we believe God when He tells us He is going to do something? When He promises to be our shield and defender, our Rock in times of trouble, our Savior, do we believe Him? God tells Moses, go gather 70 elders, whom I will put some of the Spirit that is on you on them so they can help you lead these people, and then watch what I will do. I will give the people meat, but they will face the consequences of their wrong heart attitudes. Ouch. It's not good to diss God. How much better to believe and ask for what we need, trust Him for the outcome, and be thankful we are known and loved by Almighty God? Moses was called the friend of God. He talked with God and took all his concerns to Him, and he obeyed God. May we do the same on our very own great, big, God adventure with Jesus! |
Franci Ballwatching and working for the kingdom of God in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham - UK Archives
January 2019
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