Numbers 1 | Wayfarer

[God said to Moses:] “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army.”
Numbers 1:2-3 (NIV)

Just last week in our chapter-a-day trek through Philippians I mentioned The Exodus Paradigm. Briefly stated, the story of God leading His people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land is a paradigm that repeats itself over and over again in the Great Story. As a disciple of Jesus, I see this paradigm in my own story. Once a slave to sin, Jesus freed me, but I still must wander through the wilderness of this earthly journey until one day I “cross Jordan” and enter the eternal Promised Land.

As I took a look at all of my chapter-a-day series by book, I couldn’t help but notice that the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy are missing from recent years, so I thought it’s a good time to explore the original Exodus Paradigm. Starting this morning, we journey back in time and enter the story as Moses and the Hebrew tribes have been camped below Mount Sinai. In Exodus God heard the cries of the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt and delivered them. In Leviticus God gave Moses The Law and instructions for setting up a radical new way of doing life together, differently than any of the other people groups around them.

Now, God is going to lead His people through the wilderness to a land He has promised them.

I’m not much of an outdoorsman. I have certainly camped, hunted, and done my share of fishing in my youth, but it’s not something that I ever got into in a serious way. I have done enough, however, to know that any kind of serious journey into the wilderness requires careful planning and preparation. You don’t just throw on a backpack and go. Especially when wandering through wilderness with dangerous wildlife, you have to be prepared for unexpected encounters with very dangerous wildlife. I suddenly have images from the scene in The Revenant when a grizzly bear attacks Leo Dicaprio running through my head.

The opening chapters of Numbers are God’s preparations for the wilderness journey His people are about to take. In fact, the title “Numbers” traditionally comes from the census, or numbering, of the people that happens multiple times in the story. In today’s first chapter, God has Moses take a census of the total number of fighting men available from each tribe.

The world of the ancient Hebrews was especially brutal and violent. Large empires like Egypt were beginning to emerge and swallow up entire regions and people groups in order to grow their empire. The Hebrews have just experienced the Egyptians chasing after them and God delivering them. There’s no promise that the Egyptians won’t recoup and come after them again. Plus, there’s no telling what violent warring people groups or communities that they will encounter. A giant, wandering nation like they are will be seen as an immediate threat, and they can fully expect to be attacked.

They have to be prepared.

In the quiet this morning, this brings me back to the metaphorical wilderness journey that is the spiritual journey through this earthly life. We just trekked through Paul’s “Prison Letters” and were reminded of the many trials and challenges he endured. I’m thankful that my life journey has not included such ordeals, but that’s not to say I don’t have my own share of challenges and trials. You do, too. We are wandering through a fallen world filled with evil, sin, and tragedy. Jesus guaranteed His followers that we would face many kinds of troubles. He said that the world would hate us the way it hated Him. I can bank on that.

Which leads me to ask: How prepared am I?

As I meditated on this question this morning it struck me how often people are surprised and unprepared when life throws them a wicked curveball. Yet, God tells me again and again to expect challenges, trials, tragedies, and tribulation along this earthly wilderness journey. They will happen. When they do happen, I’m told to rejoice, to praise, and to consider it all joy in the midst of them.

Last week in our trek through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he told the believers to “put on the full armor of God” in preparation for the spiritual dangers awaiting us on this journey. It’s no different than what God was asking the Hebrew tribes to physically do in today’s chapter.

Paul tells me that what I need to be spiritually prepared for the dangers awaiting me on my own wilderness journey are the following:

Righteousness that guards my heart like a breastplate
Truth as a belt around my waist
Preparedness of peace as my hiking boots
Salvation as a helmet protecting my precious head
Faith as a shield
The Word of God as a sword

How well I navigate this earthly journey has a lot to do with how spiritually prepared I am each day. Which is what my mornings in the quiet and this chapter-a-day trek has always been about.

Lace ‘em up, friend. A new day and a new work week lies ahead.

Are you ready?

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The Israelites are to set up their tents by divisions, each of them in their own camp under their standard.
Numbers 1:52 (NIV)

Today we begin a sojourn through the book of Numbers. It’s one of the most ancient of texts in God’s Message and the fourth of five books known by many names such as the Torah, the Law, the Books of Moses, or the Law of Moses. It picks up the story of the Hebrew people’s “exodus” from slavery in Egypt. Having escaped from Egypt into the Arabian desert (as told in Exodus), they camped at Mt. Sinai where Moses was given the commandments and the law (as laid out in Leviticus).

Every sizable journey begins with preparation. In today’s opening chapter we pick up the story as Moses carries out a muster of the twelve tribes and a census of men capable of fighting. They are preparing for a march, and the tribe of Levi is given the role of the set-up, take-down, and transportation of a giant tent called the Tabernacle, which served as a traveling temple for the nation. The destination of the wandering nation is “the promised land,” but first they have to traverse the wilderness.

We’re heading into the wilderness, which is a crucial, prescribed path for every spiritual journey. Moses had his years of exile in Midian. Elijah had his flight through the wilderness to Mount Horeb. Jesus went “into the wilderness” for 40 days to fast and to be tested. Fascinating to connect that at Jesus’ transfiguration it was both wilderness wanderer’s, Elijah and Moses, who appeared on the mount with Him.

The hero’s journey of every great epic includes a journey into a wilderness of unknown territory. Bilbo had his mountain and Mirkwood. Luke Skywalker had his Dagoba, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent almost an entire book alone in the wilderness seeking the Hallows. The wilderness is where we find ourselves (the good, the bad, and the ugly). The wilderness is where we are tried and prepared for the purpose. Without the wilderness, we will never be prepared for the ordeal through which we reach the reward and begin the road back.

This morning I’m looking back at my own life journey. There have been various stretches of wilderness wanderings spiritually relationally, artistically, and vocationally. I’m quite sure there are more to come before the journey’s end. Wilderness is a part of the process and, as we’ll find in our sojourn with the Hebrews, the longer I refuse to embrace the process and learn the lessons I need to learn, I will continue to wander.

Time to lace up the hiking boots. Here we go.