God’s Love: The Foundation of Our Faith
What lessons about God did you learn as a child? Some child development researchers suggest that children have an inborn sense of God. Child development researchers also know that family structures impact the mental, emotional, and spiritual frameworks and understanding of children. Ultimately, every person must decide if they believe in God and trust in Jesus as their savior or not. Some of us were raised in households where we were exposed to faith, and many in recent generations are growing up in households that are absent of any foundation of faith.
The opening verse in Numbers 11 has me thinking about our current moment and the lack of even the basics of faith in many children’s lives. Verse one reads: “And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled…” This verse makes me wonder if the Israelites really didn’t think that God could or would hear their complaining and grumbling.
One of the first songs I can remember from my preschool days in church had several verses but was built around this idea: “There’s a father up above looking down in tender love,” and the refrain of each verse was to pay attention to what you say, do, hear, and go. I suppose that lyric could produce an unhealthy response, that there is a God ready to punish you, or it could convey that there is a loving God who cares about every aspect of your life and wants to help you. The teaching of the church, and especially that of a child’s parents, influences the interpretation and can create either a healthy or unhealthy view of God and, therefore, an openness to spiritual formation.
What was the spiritual formation of multiple generations during 400 years of being enslaved in Egypt? The second chapter of Exodus indicates there was enough awareness of God that the Israelites cried out to God, and God sent Moses as a leader he would use to bring deliverance and freedom. (Exodus 2:23-25)
If you consider the events that happened throughout the Exodus story up until Numbers 11, we see that God called Moses to confront Pharaoh. Pharaoh releases the Israelites, who leave with the plunder the Egyptians willingly gave them. They walk through the sea that God parted for their escape. They watch the water come back over the Egyptian army. They receive the Ten Commandments. They receive water from a rock and manna daily from heaven. They celebrate the Passover, see the cloud of God surround the Tabernacle that they built from God’s instructions. And then leave Mount Sinai to travel to the Promised Land.
Chapter 11 opens with the people complaining in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and God becomes upset about their complaints. It is easy for us to turn into armchair quarterbacks and act like they were simply ungrateful in light of all that God had done for them. But in reading scripture, we need to be careful that we allow God’s Spirit to use his word to reveal in us where we may be guilty of the same thing we read about in the stories of our spiritual forefathers.
The events of chapter 11 are rather intense. God’s anger leads to a burning fire in the camp that consumes some outlying parts of the camp. It is interesting to note that in their panic, the Israelites cried out to Moses for help, which is different than their original cries to God while they were in Egypt. Again, before we pass too much judgment on the Israelites, we must ask how often we turn to various people or sources for help before going to the Lord in our moment of crisis or need.
Moses prayed to God, and the fires stopped. God is, was, and will always be our best source of help in times of need. What happens next is interesting. Verse four says, “Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat to eat…’” The first thing of interest here is understanding who or how many were the rabble. Hebrew scholars suggest that the rabble may have been non-Jews who were also in bondage in Egypt who left with the Hebrew people. They may have come from other parts of the region and been lumped into the lower ranks of society and held as slaves. No one knows how many people made up the rabble. Some scholars say it was maybe a mob, but I think it is safe to conclude that some got stirred up and incited the greater group to more complaining.
The second thing to note is the Hebrew definition for the word ‘craving.’ Scholars suggest that in the Hebrew, the root word is repeated twice, suggesting that the rabble actually desired desire. Or another
way of saying it is that they simply wanted what they didn’t have and more than they didn’t have. It is only later in the text that there is an object connected to the desire for more of something. And even then, the suggestion is that the Egyptians provided meat, fish, and vegetables, but it seems everyone had forgotten that they received those things because of their enslaved situation.
Again, in self-evaluation we might ask ourselves how many times does our yearning cry out for, or even demand, more, even when we may not be able to articulate more of what. We might even apply this to what we want in our various communities and even in our government. We often long for more because of our deep issues that say that whatever we have is not enough.
All of this brings me back to where I started: when a child experiences an introduction to a God who is looking down in tender love, I think there is a much greater chance that spiritual formation will lead to the place where we realize that the love of God is sufficient to meet all of our needs. Our sins overtime certainly interfere with our connection to God, but when we daily surrender to his love, mercy, and grace, we soon discover that God is all we need. His love is sufficient in every situation of life.
Father, thank you for teaching us from your word. Forgive us for the many ways and times we long for more than you and you alone. We trust you to provide for us in every way. Thank you for your amazing love! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Numbers 11:1-35; Exodus 2:23-25 ESV
Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash
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