Obedience (Numbers 1-2)

As I mentioned a while back, my women's Bible study just started a study on the book of Jonah. It's fantastic. Priscilla's Shirer is spot on with her analogies and she makes such good points. In today's homework she asked what biblical characters I could think of who had a divine intervention that altered the course of their lives and how he or she made her mark. She gave the examples of Esther, Mary, Rahab, and Peter.  The truth is, almost every person I could think of in the Bible is in there because they were aware God was intervening with a job for them to do and they did it.  Maybe not at first, maybe not without a little coaxing, but eventually they were obedient to God and the results were titanic.

The study is giving me a renewed appreciation for Moses.  We know how he resisted the job to begin with and then!  What a wild job it turned out to be!  Arguing with Pharaoh, leading the (kind of fickle) Israelites, performing miracles, talking with God (!!!), overseeing the construction of the ark and tabernacle, acting as judge, leading battles, recording all of this for prosperity... I have to wonder if he ever wished he would have just stuttered a big, fat "No!" when God approached him.  But then it may have been Moses rather than Jonah who was swallowed by the whale!

In any event, Moses writes on in Numbers and we begin to see the Israelites getting into formation for their first "real" battle (I'm not counting running away from the Egyptians).  The first couple chapters were filled with (you guessed it!) lots of numbers.  There are so many Israelites!  I am scared to think of moving the five people in my family to another house; I cannot imagine moving thousands and thousands of people around the desert.  But Moses is God's #1 guy- not a bad number to be.

Here's the study we're doing if you're interested!