Food for Friday
Surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it. Numbers 14:23
Our father promised us an ice cream pie when we had piled a certain number of ranks of firewood into the woodshed. We had been working at the huge piles of slabwood in the yard, slowly carrying it into the shed. The rough wood was no fun to handle in the late summer heat, and we longed for the finish line. Our father’s promise of an ice cream pie gave us incentive to carry on. But it also gave us a desire to find a shortcut. And we found one. The second to last rank didn’t make it all the way to the ceiling like the others did, in fact, we left that rank barely half filled. And the final rank covered up our shortcut, or so we thought. When our father came to inspect the job, he quickly detected our shortcut, and ordered us to fill up that second rank. And we never did see that ice cream pie. We didn’t deserve it, anymore than the disobedient Israelites deserved to see the promised land.
The Israelites knew that it was only by the hand of the Lord that they would make it all the way from Egypt into the promised land. All they had to do was proceed when He told them to. But they had balked at the spies’ accounts of the giants in the land. They complained and turned back in disobedience. All of the great blessing that had been so precious and exciting to them was gone, and they had no-one to blame but themselves. They knew that their blessing was based on their obedience, and they blew it. Before we criticize them too harshly, we should look into our mirrors and see the reason for our own lack of blessing.
John H. Sammis wrote a lovely and powerful hymn called Trust and Obey. Its refrain goes like this: Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. The truth of this hymn runs deep. It was true for the Israelites on the verge of Canaan, and it is true for us today as we face the challenges and opportunities that our Lord sets before us. Speaking for myself – and probably for you – I can see where my failure to obey my Lord in the past has cost me dearly. Our Lord treasures obedience from His children far above sacrifice or service. The Israelites in today’s text never received the blessing they sought. But our Lord is giving us the opportunity today to return to His path of obedience.
Trust and obey; it’s not just a lovely hymn, it’s the only path to blessing from our Lord. – Jim MacIntosh