"I will make of thee a great nation..."
“...I will accept you and make you
into a fearsome nation, far greater and more impressive than they
might be or could ever dream of being.” (Numbers 14:11)
There was a time in my life that I
could never dream of having the freedom I have in my life today. I
was just painfully surviving from day to day bound up in so much
fear, despair and inadequacy. Like my littlest, I would often look
down when someone would look me in the eye and I had a strong desire
to hide when I was noticed. With the pain and little hope of
freedom, contemplating suicide became part of my daily regular
routine when I was young and carried with me into adulthood.
Then I met God and my life totally
changed. Day after day He has loved me into greater and greater life. He loved me out of my
despair, hopelessness and fear and into greater joy, peace and trust. This
is just who God is.... unrelenting love. We cannot walk with God
without being changed by Him and loved into greater life.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a
mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."
In Numbers 14:18, Moses quoted God,
“You declared, “I am slow to get angry and overflow with
consistently boundless love. I forgive wrongdoing and waywardness,
but I don't overlook the necessity for justice, so I punish the
guilty ones' third and fourth coming generations.
Moses was reminding God because the
people were stubborn and persistently faithless. They kept
following the ways they learned from the past in Egypt and were not
letting go of them. The people griped about how they felt life was
for them and made evil complaints. Numbers 11:1 notes, “He was
furious about this ingratitude, faithlessness, and lack of vision.
Their appetites were not for walking
with God but for the things of the past. They resented the daily
manna that God was providing them. In addition to this, they were
proud, comparing, and power hungry. Even Aaron and Miriam, part of
the leadership, were looking for power and comparing themselves to
Moses.
Moses longed for God to be with them
and make them into a different people that trusted and honored God.
As God's servant, Moses prayed, longed and endured patiently the people, continually calling them more and more into trust and
wholeheartedness.
As he did, God patiently cared for them, carried
them and gave them what they needed until He nurtured them to life
and was able to bring them into the land He had promised to them.
Duet. 1:31 notes, “...in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD
your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way
which you have walked until you came to this place.' “
God didn't cater to what they wanted or appease them. Rather, He nurtured them and gave them what they needed despite their complaints and whining about it. Duet. 8:3 notes, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
God calls us out of our lives of
comparison, competitiveness, and power into a life of humble service,
devotion, and love. We get there not by being appeased and catered
to on what we want but by allowing God to feed us our daily manna,
have His way in our lives, and die to ourselves as we come out of
selfishness, complaining and ingratitude into trust.
Jean Vanier writes, “Jesus came to
lead us from this rivalry and competition so that we become
more human, more compassionate, more open to others.
He came to liberate us from our
personal or collective selfishness, from the fears and the prejudices
that enclose us in ourselves. He came to lead us on the road of
love. We cannot move out from self-centeredness to self-giving
unless we receive a new force from God. This new life or growth in
the Spirit needs to be nourished. Jesus came to give us a special
food so that we may attain fullness of life.” [1]
“And we come rejoicing, and singing,
and crying out to You Lord. Can you hear the roar... as we respond
to who You are and all that You have done with our lives Lord”
sings. “… We're servants to love in lost humanity...”
We come out of our collective
comparisons and selfishness, to love others to life. As Moses
partnered with God in leading the people out of bondage and through
the wilderness, we become partners with God to lead and love others
into greater life.
Jean Vanier writes, “To become a good
shepherd is to come out of the shell of selfishness in order to be
attentive to those for whom we are responsible so as to reveal to
them their fundamental beauty and value and help them to row and
become fully alive.” [2]
In the same way that God liberates us
by giving us what we need and loving us to life, our job as parents
and shepherds to others is not to appease them and cater to what they
want, but meet their needs and form them sometimes despite their
complaining. We are to help them grow in selflessness, serving and
love for others.
Today's world paints such a picture for
parents and kids of a good parent being someone who caters to their
kids every whim. When my youngest two watch cartoons, the
commercials pop on with parents who give their kids whatever they
want.
There is the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtle mom who has her house designed with a manhole that goes to the
kids bedroom. Mom buys all the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
toys and tosses them down to the kids. She is viewed as supermom by
her kids and adored.
I love to be the “good mom” and it
is such a temptation at times to cater to and appease my kids. I
just eat it up when my kids tell me, “your the greatest mom in the
world.” I am on the top of the world. Then I do something that
doesn't appeal to them and I just as easily can fall from graces. My
kids can get expectations at times that my job is to cater to them
and resent it when I don't.
To cater to ones kids comes from a
place of self-centeredness. When I do this at times, I think it is
probably more about what I need/desire (to be appreciated by them as
a 'good mom') than what they need.
Dr. Henry Cloud & John Townsend
write, “The real goal of parenting is developing mature character.
When children grow up with mature character, they are able to take
their place as adults in the world and function properly in all areas
of life. Character growth under God is the main goal of child
rearing, for character provides the structure and ability to respond
to life's challenges. In other words, character is the sum of our
abilities to deal with life as God designed us to.” [3]
This is also the goal of shepherding.
Paul says in Colossians 1:28, “He is the one we proclaim,
admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may
present everyone fully mature in Christ.”
Lord, thank you for the ways that You
grow us into maturity – not by catering to our desires but giving
us what we truly need despite our response to Your work among us.
Help us to love others more like You love us. Forgive me where I
have done otherwise.
I don't want to
just get the answers right
I don't want to
just live for this life
I want so much
more than the world can give
Would you teach me
to really live?
Would you meet me
where I am here?
There used to be
so much I would fear
I no longer
struggle the same with the worry or self-doubt
No longer suffer
under the weight of it all
More yet, my life
once so filled with despair
Joy and peace have
become my fare
What more dear
Father could I ask of You.
Your goodness has
more than seen me through
My shoes have not
worn and all my needs more than met
Yet there is more
I'm longing for yet ..
You are my
treasure the One that I long
That I would be
nearer to this One whom I belong
That every day
would be filled with Your touch
That my life would
speak that I love you so much
Teach me to like
Jacob to say yes in it all
Teach me like him
to offer You my all
3. Cloud, Dr. Henry and Townsend, Dr. John. Taken from notes that were from Life Journey Bible.
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