Holiday Hiatus

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It's that time of year....

And this year we are doing a fairly large scale production for the holiday at church.

And, well, that means costumes.  Lots of costumes.

So, in the interest of keeping my sanity...and maybe actually getting everything done that has to be done, I'm going to suspend the Desert Digging study until January.

Just don't think I've got the time to put in on it right now...and I want to put time on it, not just check it off the box.

I will drop in as I can!

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert -- To the Banks of the Jordan

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Here's where the whole 'Look at desert references' thing starts getting crazy.  The Israelites are no longer wandering about, but moving with a purpose.

The Israelites moved on and camped at Oboth.  Then they set out from Oboth and camped in Iye Abarim, in the desert that faces Moab toward the sunrise.  From there they moved on and camped in the Zered Valley.  They set out from there and camped alongside the Arnon, which is in the desert extending  into Amorite territory.  The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites...From there, they continued on to Beer, the well where the LORD said to Moses, "Gather the people together and I will give them water."...Then they went from the desert to Mattanah, from Mattanah to Bamoth, and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the waseteland. -- Num. 21:10-13,16, 17b-20

Point to point to point in the desert.  Checking my NIV Bible Atlas, the Arnon dumps into the Dead Sea on the east side, just about in the north-to-south middle.  From Kadesh, they went around the southern edge of Edom's territory and came up the east side of the Dead Sea.

They actually asked the Amorite king, Sihon, for permission to cross his territory on the public highway, promising to stay on the highway and take no provisions or water on their way through. (21:22)

But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory.  He mustered his entire army and marched out into the desert against Israel.  When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel.  (21:23)

That's actually the last mention of the desert until we get to Chapter 24. I wonder how accustomed to the desert the Amorite army actually was; Israel had been living in the desert for 40 years...it was no hardship for them.  But the Amorites may have suffered from the environment as much as they did the swords and bows of the Israelites...and they were defeated.  Now, this was the entire army of the Amorites; when Israel defeated them, they conquered the Amorites...the whole lot of them...and occupied their cities.  This wasn't the first battle they had fought, but it was the first in which they claimed territory.

Because the Amorite king attacked them in the desert.

Once the king and his army were defeated, there was no one to stop them from occupying the land.  But they were under strict instructions to remove the folks they found living there, lest they intermarry and take on the pagan lifestyle/ beliefs.  Moses sent spies into Jazer and they easily captured the settlements and drove out the Amorites, as instructed.

The same thing happened with Og, the king of Bashan; he attacked the Israelites and was completely defeated, so the Israelites occupied his territory as well.

This kind of sets up the pattern that we saw when we studied Joshua last year; entire armies,sometimes multiple armies,  came against Israel and were defeated, so that the territory became theirs with a single battle. Of course, the people were still there, but the army was decimated and the Israelites became the  military power ruling the area.

Chapter 22:1 relates that the Israelites  then traveled to the plains of  Moab and camped there, on the east side of the Jordan, opposite the city of Jericho.

The rest of Numbers and the entire book of Deuteronomy take place in that location, with the nation poised to enter the Promised Land...which was just on the other side of the river.

The desert had been their hardship for 40 years, but it was also their purging and their preparation. They had lost much, but they had learned much.  It was a different people than they were 40 years earlier, with a different mindset, AND with recent military victories to encourage them.  They were...almost...ready.

But there was one more purge and a change of leadership coming before they could cross that river. 

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging -- Final Years of Wandering

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

As I mentioned last week, there really isn't a lot of description of the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert; Korah's Rebellion happened at some point, and eventually they wandered around to a place with a familiar name...

In the first month, the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh.  There Miriam died and was buried.  (Ex. 20:1)

According to the Bible Atlas I have handy, that is indeed the location that is called Kadesh Barnea in other scripture...like Numbers 14.  I don't know how I have missed all these years that Moses' big faux pas also  happened at Kadesh, but, well, there it is.

Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.  They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD!  Why did you bring the LORD's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here?  Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?  It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates.  And there is no water to drink!"   (20:2 - 5)

Grumble count: 8

Of course, this is the incident in which Moses lost his temper.  God told him to assemble the people and speak to the rock, and water would come out of it.   But it didn't go down that way.

He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, why must we bring you water out of this rock?"  Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.  (20:10-11)

Frankly, I am amazed that Moses had managed to keep his cool this long.  Every time up to this point, when he had been accused, or the people rebelled or complained...he either took it up with God or fell on his face in intercession.   But this time, Moses gave his emotions their freedom, and he resentfully added his own flourish of pounding the rock for emphasis.  God, in his care and mercy, still released the water.  But Moses had committed a grave error. (Hm. Didn't mean that pun, but it works, so....)

Moses and Aaron were now included with the rest of their generation and forbidden to enter the Promised Land.  They got no special allowances.  With that, the Israelites moved again, detouring around Edom because the Edomites refused to grant them passage through their land.  Aaron died on Mount Hor and was succeeded as High Priest by his son Eleazar.  From Mount Hor, they traveled southeast, around Edom, and, well, it happend again.

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom.  But the people grew impatient along the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up of of Egypt to die in the desert!  There is no bread! There is  no water!  And we detest this miserable food!"  (21:4-5)

Grumble count: 9

And again, it cost them....

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. (21:6)

But...as the judgment was falling, the Israelites did something they did NOT do the previous eight times they complained and suffered the consequences.  This time, they confessed their error:

The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you.  Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us."  So Moses prayed for the people.  (V.7)

This was a very interesting response from the people. It was the FIRST time they had owned their complaint as sin...and as we continue to follow them through the desert to the Jordan, you will see that it is the LAST time they complain.

But God, in response to Moses' prayers, instructed Moses to create a bronze serpent, put it on a pole and display it before the people; telling him that anyone who looked at the bronze serpent would live.

Moses did so, and anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed. (vs. 8 - 9).

But...with their repentance and end to complaining, something else happened.  When they left that place (apparently they took the snake-on-a-pole with them; it turns up again much later in Israel's history), they were no longer wandering...they were moving.  They  began conquering territory.  They were headed for the plains of Moab...on the east side of the Jordan River.  The years in the desert were drawing to a close.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging -- Heading Back to the Desert

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

 

I confess, this week had had me cringing, flinching, procrastinating... But now it's time to take a deap breath and tackle it head on.

The next mention of 'desert'  after the dismal affair at Kadesh is Numbers 15:32:

While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

We are not given an itemized description of what happened whilst the Israelites wandered about in the desert, shut out of the promise until all the complaining generation had died off, but we do get a couple of significant events.  The lowly fellow breaking the Sabbath led to catastrophic events, which came to be known as Korah's Rebellion.

The fellow who broke the Sabbath was stoned for his audacity...or absent-mindedness.   It was important that the Israelites learn that God was serious about this Sabbath business, but it was also apparent that they weren't used to the boundaries yet.  So God gave Moses instructions to have the Israelites create tassels  on the corners of their garments...tassels with a blue thread.  The idea was to give them a  continual visible reminder that they were holy people, with holy expectations, so they wouldn't fall back into old habits and break the covenant.

Sounds simple enough, right?  

But the tassels caused problems.  

Not going to quote it all here; you can read it in the first part of chapter 16...Korah, some Reubenites, and 250 community leaders  came as a group to Moses and said, "You have gone too far!" (16:3) 

Taking the whole thing in context...their complaint was triggered by Moses reporting the new requirement to put tassels on the clothing.

That was, apparently, something the men of the assembly could not handle.  So they rebelled.

Moses basically told them they would have a meeting before the LORD, who would then demonstrate clearly who had the authority to speak for God, telling the group 

"It against the LORD that you and all your followers have banded together.  Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?"  (16:11).

Side quest grumble count: 6

Moses summoned the Reubenites who were supporting Korah to the, um, meeting but received the response

"We will not come!  Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the desert?  And now you also want to lord it over us? Moreover, you  haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards.  Will you gouge the eyes out of these men? No, we will not come!  (16: 12b - 14).

Adding grumble to grumble...accusation to accusation.

The next morning, as had been determined,  all the leaders accusing Moses and Aaron took their censers of incense and appeared in front of the tent of meeting.  Moses and Aaron fell facedown before God and interceeded for the people once again, and once again God determined the scope of his judgement...

"Say to the assembly,  'Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.' " (16:24)

It no doubt took some time for everyone to pack up their tents and such and move away from these folks; Korah's tent would have been with the Levites, but Dathan and Abiram's tents were in the camp of the Reubenites.  Nonetheless, eventually all the Israelites had removed all their belongings and families well away from the tents of the three leaders of the rebellion.  Those guys stood at the entrance to their tents with their families...heartbreaking.  

Selah a moment to get a good mental picture of what that looked like....these three guys, with their families, watching everyone pack up and move away from them.

Once everyone was clear, Moses made a declaration to the nation. paraphrased as:

"We are going to see if God sent me and told me to do all these things.  If nothing happens, and all these folks in front of you go on about their business and die of natural causes at a good old age, then I 'm a fake and God never spoke to me.  But if God does something totally new and unexpected...like, say, the ground opens up and swallows them and all that belongs to them and they are all buried alive, then you will know that these men have treated God with contempt."

We pick up the narrative in 16:31:

As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with all their households and all Korah's men and all their posessions.  They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them , and they perished and were gone from the community."

Selah a moment and get a mental picture of THAT.  

At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, 'The earth is going to swallow us, too!'   (16:34)

Are you imagining the chaos and confusion and terror?  Do you see the choking dust? Are you hearing the screams of those that perished and those who thought they would be next?  And yet in the midst of all this, one other stroke of judgement fell...

And fire came out from the LORD and  consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense. (16:35)

Nobody had moved away from them; they were still presumably standing in front of the Tent of Meeting with their censers.

The ashes of those that died and the coals in the censers were scattered, but God declared their censers holy, and they were collected to be hammered out as an overlay for the altar, reminding the Israelites that God had chosen Aaron and his descendants to minister to him.  Every time the sacrifices were made, the people would see the bronze from the censers of the men who paid for their rebellion with their lives.

You would think this would be the end of the issue, with God's chain of command clearly verified before the people.

Nope.

The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron, "You have killed the LORD's people," they said.  (16:41)

Grumble number seven.  On the VERY NEXT DAY.

Verse 42 tells us that the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the Tent of Meeting.

The intercession the day before had pivoted on the mercy of God to not destroy the whole nation because a small percentage had rebelled.  But on that day, it was the entire nation rising up against them, despite the clear signs that God was working through them alone.  

This time, Moses and Aaron fell facedown before God's declaration that he would destroy the nation...and the plague started.  Some kind of virulent disease broke out and people began dropping like flies (Cholera? Even that takes a few days.  Whatever this was, it was lethal and it was spreading fast).  Moses told Aaron to put incense in his censer and make atonement for the people.  He did so as quickly as he could, and ran into the the midst of the assembly and made atonement, with his incense and his prayers.

He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. (16:48)

Numbers 16:49 tells us that Fourteen thousand seven hundred people died in the time it took Aaron to get the coals in his censer and find the leading edge of the plague. Add to that the folks who had died on the previous day and we are pushing 15,000 people who died because they decided being required to put tassels on their clothes was going too far.

Chapter 17 relates the final sign God gave to tell the people that Moses and Aaron were acting on His authority...Aaron's staff budded , blossomed and produced almonds.  The staff was put in front of the Testimony, as a sign, again, to remind people not to grumble.

We have more instructions about offerings and such; the instructions for the water of cleansing, which was to contain the ashes of a perfect red heifer, but no details on their movements through the rest of chapter 19.

This was clearly the biggest challenge to Moses and Aaron to date.  It is, perhaps, understandable if you realize that the Israelites really didn't have a concept of who God was or what his heart was towards his people.  They may very well have assumed it was Moses who brought them to the edge of the Promise, only to wave it in front of them and then deny them access to it.  If they really didn't believe God was with them, if they concocted some kind of narrative that explained everything away without God's intervention, they totally missed the lessons.  They did, as Moses stated, treat God with contempt. Because they didn't really believe.

It was a willful self-deception.  And they paid the price for it.

Self-deception is not excused.  It incurs penalties.  It is one of the things that angers God.

It's also one of humanity's favorite responsibility dodges...we refuse to see, refuse to believe, allow ourselves to be convinced...all to avoid acknowledging our sin.  It makes us feel better but...it doesn't work. All it does is blind us to the truth...to the point that God can be moving right in front of us in ways we can't ignore ( do you suppose those screams haunted dreams for decades?) but we will not see what is really  happening.  

I need a 'tassel' in my life, to remind myself daily that I am not my own, I am bought with a price...and I am to honor God at all times.  Because it's way too easy to fall into doing what makes sense to me.  The 'tassel' is a reminder that what makes sense to me...isn't necessarily what is sensible before God.

Checking In

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Y'all tomorrow is the first free Saturday I've had since August 31st.  It's been a crazy, crazy couple of months.

I am planning to pick back up with the desert digging posts next Friday.

Hopefully by then I will have the laundry caught up and the seasonal clothes switched around, lol.

But here's a snippet of the last two weeks, for what it's worth...

Moonrise over the farm in Indiana...

We were home celebrating my Mom's birthday

 The next weekend found us in northeastern Tennessee; My Sweet 

Babboo was at a FCF Rendezvous, camping at a state park; I hung out with a couple of high school buddies; one happened to live there; the other drove down.  First time we'd all three been together since 1982.

This weekend we celebrated his birthday; beef'n'noodles and carrot cake...

The next 8 weeks may be consumed by Christmas production costuming; I'm hoping most can be thrifted but we will have to see.  But tomorrow...I am not setting the alarm clock!

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - The Reward of Complaining

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Numbers 13 and 14 are where the Desert Digging and the Side Quest of Counting the Complaints collide in a big way...

So at the LORD's command Moses sent them [the 12 guys sent to have a look round the Promised Land] out from the Desert of Paran.  All of them were leaders of the Israelites.  -- Num. 13:3

'All of them were leaders'...whatever opinions they had of the land would have some clout.

They wandered the length and breadth of the land and looked it -- its potential, its inhabitants, its produce -- over really well.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There the reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey!  Here is its fruit."  (Num 13:26-27).

So far, so good.  But ...remember the negative attitude that these folks had traveling to this spot?  It hasn't left them.

"But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.  We even saw descendants of Anak there." (13:28)

They went on  to list the different tribes in the area.  There must have been a grumbling response from the people, because we see  in verse 30 that Caleb had to do some shushing.

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." 

Alas, Caleb had the minority opinion, for he was immediately contradicted.  I'm not going to quote the whole lament of the other guys; it's in Numbers 13:31 - 33, concluding with "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Then we have what I'm going to call the Great Grumble.  It's number 5 in the count, but it is the grandfather of all grumbles and it cost them dearly.

That night all the people  of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.  All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, "If only we had died in Egypt!  Or in this desert!  Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?  Or wives and children will be taken as plunder.  Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?"  And they said to each other, "We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt." (Num 14: 1 - 4)

Moses and Aaron fell face down; praying, one would suppose.  Caleb and Joshua tore their clothes in grief and frustration and tried to reason with them, but the people threatened to stone them.

God had heard enough.

Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. (14:10b)

There's no mention that Moses got up and went into the Tent to hear what God had to say.  I rather think there was a rumbling thunder the people heard; I don't think they comprehended the exchange between God and Moses, in which God  threatened to obliterate the whole stubborn nation and start over with Moses.

It's interesting that Moses did not reason with God on behalf of the people at all...his entire argument was for the reputation of the name of the LORD, concluding,

"If you put these people to death all at once time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, 'The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.' "  (14:15-16)

THEN he makes his request

"In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now."  (14:19)

But even then, Moses' request was not based on the needs of the people but on the character of God.  And God did not destroy the whole nation.

But there were consequences.

"...I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.  So tell them, 'As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say:  In this desert your bodies will fall -- every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.  Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.  As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected."  (14:27b - 31)

God promised to do exactly to them what they had pronounced over themselves:  If only we had died...in this desert....
  
Judgement was passed and sentence pronounced.

"...your bodies will fall in this desert.  Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert.  For forty years -- one year for each of the forty days you explored the land -- you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.  I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me.  They will  meet their end in this desert; here they will die."  (14:32 - 34)


Then the ten guys who spied out the land with Caleb and Joshua and were responsible for the bad report that set the nation to grumbling dropped dead.

Furthermore, God sent them away from the threshold of the promise.

"Since the Amalekites and Canannites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea."  (v. 25)

Well, then they were all sorry and repented of their complaining.  They actually tried to take some ground in the hill country, without Moses or the Ark of the Covenant or the presence of God, and they got beaten back.  The door was closed. They could no longer claim the promise.  It was going to wait for their children.

After they had wandered for forty years in the desert.

The reward of complaining was...that they got precisely what they had declared they preferred to what God was giving them.

Be very, very careful about complaining.  It's a big deal to God.  And the desert, which was supposed to just be a temporary passage, became a graveyard.

We Got Mousified...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It's been, like, 3 weeks now and I am still trying to catch up. Doesn't help that we launched right into the middle of one of the busiest months I can remember in the recent past.  It's not the busy of a Big Project..it's the busy of a myriad Small Projects, short trips and approaching holiday preparations....Christmas production tryouts?

I've managed to squeeze out a couple of the Desert study posts by writing them in small bits over the week and then posting, but I didn't make it last week...and the next couple of weeks are iffy.

So...thoughts on the trip to see the mouse in Florida...

We planned for, like, almost a year.  First it was the reservations themselves...then it was the dining reservations...then it was the fast pass selections...and the installment payments...the hotel reservations for the trip down and back...the arrangements to board the cat at the vet's...watching the tropics to see if we were going to get hit by the tropical storm or merely sideswiped...and then it stayed off the coast all together and we barely had any rain.

The Princess and her hubby are serious fans...in fact, she has done the training and is now a certified vacation planner for all things, um, relevant to the mouse.  So they Knew What To Do.  The Actor had been once with a church group 5 years ago; My Sweet Babboo and I had visited the mouse back in March of 1982, when there was only one park down there.  So that almost doesn't even count.

The Artist and the Flute Player had never been.

We had tickets for the 'exclusive event' they do from mid-August to Nov. 1...and, honestly, the 'exclusive event' had the biggest crowd and longest wait lines of the week we were there.  But it was fun to dress up in a character costume and interact with castmembers a bit.  And the fireworks were jaw-dropping.

We actually saw 4 major fireworks shows.

We ate some incredible food.  Yay for the dining plan...we would have cheapskated it had we not had that all covered.  We also ate some of the cheapskate food...it was handy at the time...there's definitely a difference between the good stuff and the cheaper stuff (which, honestly, ain't cheap).

We got to go to the edge of the galaxy and 'flew' the legendary smuggler's ship. I even came home with a light saber that I assembled myself...the 18 year old inner me was totally geeking out.  That may actually  have been my favorite bit.

We had a lot of fun with our kids plus one, and I suppose it's possible that we could do it again.

But not for a while, lol.

A week back...Christmas auditions...then another weekend away...Alabama Royal Rangers Lead Conference.  The 'fun activity' for the event was...skeet shooting.  But they also had some target shooting w/a .22 rifle.  Now,  growing up,  shooting guns was not an approved activity for girls.  I think I snuck in a bit of  tin-can pinging with a BB gun at some point, but that was it.  I didn't brave the shotgun, but I managed to hit the iddle bitty .22 target a fair number of times ..for a first timer, lol.

And it's not going to slow down for another 2 ish weeks.  More random busy for the rest of the month.  But...then it will be November, and at least  the only real crazy will be Christmas production prep.  Oh, and Thanksgiving, lol.

All of this is basically to say I will do my best to be consistent with the Desert Digging posts...but if they fail to show, well, I'll get something up as soon as I can.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - Journey to Kadesh

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Numbers 10: 11- 12 records the departure from Sinai...

On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony.  Then the Israelites set out from the  Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran.

This was the first time that the Israelites traveled as an ordered march;  part of their instructions during their sojourn at Sinai included how to order the camp, both while they were stopped and while they were on the move, following the cloud.  Before Sinai, they were a group of refugees; now they were a nation moving with purpose.  We have one more mention of 'desert' in chapter 10; Moses asks his father-in-law to accompany them to their destination.  At first, Jethro (aka Hobab) refused,

But Moses said, "Please do not leave us.  You know where we should camp in the desert, and you can be our eyes.  If you come with us, we will share with you whatever good things the LORD gives us."  (10:31-32).  There's no other reference to the conversation, so apparently Jethro/Hobab went with them.  He knew the desert, and he would know where there was water...springs and cisterns.

I'm going to mention the little side quest here; the trip to the Desert of Paran was a struggle.  In actuality, the word 'desert' only appears in three verses in the account of the journey.  But something happens here that sets up a pattern that will influence a decision that will change the character of the desert sojourn.  In chapter 11, the Israelites resort to grumbling again.  They had been happy enough at Sinai, but once they were on the move again, well,

Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused.  Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.  (11:1). 

They'd gone nearly a whole year without complaining or grumbling...but now it starts again (grumble count: 3)  With the camp ordered as instructed, the 'outskirts' of the camp would be the folks who were not actual Israelites but who were tagging along with them; some had come with them from Egypt, and they caused some problems as we'll see in pretty short order.  But verse 2 tells us that the people cried to Moses while the fire was burning; he prayed for them and the fire died down.  But that didn't stop the grumbling.

The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat!  We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost -- also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.  But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!" (11:4-6).

Grumble count: 4.

Even Moses picked up a lament; he was overwhelmed by the complaining of the people. The rest of chapter 11 describes God's provision for them...he gave Moses some help in governing the people, and he gave the people quail to eat...and a plague of judgment that killed enough that the place became known as 'Graves of Craving' -- Kibroth Hattaavah.

And it wasn't enough that the people were grumbling; chapter 12 relates that Miriam and Aaron picked up the complaining spirit and THEY began to talk behind Moses' back.

But, as has already been demonstrated, the LORD hears the complaints.  There was a meeting with Moses, and the presence of God came down and scolded Aaron and Miriam...and when it was over, Miriam had been stricken with leprosy.  Moses, of course, interceded and after Miriam had been excluded from the camp for 7 days; she was healed and allowed to return.

After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.  (12:16).

This should have been a relatively easy journey for the company, from Sinai to Paran.  But they made it difficult by complaining.  And I can't help but wonder if that complaining attitude didn't set the stage for what would happen at Kadesh Barnea, there in the desert of Paran.   They were on the brink of their promise...and they had come through a struggle with folks dying in the desert as a result of their complaints.  No enemies had attacked them, they had not had issues looking for water, all their problems on that trip were a direct result of their own complaining.

They were on very dangerous ground, but they didn't see it.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - Sojourn at Sinai

posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Chronologically speaking, Israel is encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai for almost a year; the record of that stay begins in Exodus 19: 2  and concludes in Numbers 10:11, when the cloud lifted from the tabernacle.

It was a critical, formative time for Israel and there are certainly many lessons from this chunk of scripture.  But I am focusing on 'desert'...so let's see what we find about the desert during that period.

There really are not a lot of references containing 'desert'...the focus was elsewhere during this period.  But there are a few.

Exodus 23:31 references the desert as a territorial border -- "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River; I will hand over to you the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you."


Leviticus 7:38 references the offerings the Israelites were commanded to bring while in the Desert of Sinai; 11:18 mentions the desert owl.  So the next real 'desert' statement is in Leviticus 16

But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat....When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forth the live goat.  He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites -- all their sins-- and put them on the goat's head.  He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.  The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert."  (Lev. 16:10,20-22)


I have always thought this a little odd.  But the truth is...we don't know the fate of the goat that symbolically carried the sins away into the desert.  Was it a domesticated goat, who would have no clue how to survive, and so slowly die of starvation/thirst...or not so slowly die as prey?   Or was it a desert goat, who was released into his own environment, where he could live happily as a wild goat?  We don't know. But...we do know that this complicated process of sacrifice and release both shows the atonement and the removing of sin from the people.  Once the goat was released at the remote location...whether he lived or died he would not be returning.  He, and the sins he bore, were gone for good.  And, here's another thought that occurs to me...you see that the people could do nothing in and of themselves to atone for or rid themselves of their sin.  No prostration, humiliation, acts of charity, or any other action save the sacrifice for atonement and the banishment of the scapegoat for removal.  If you read through Leviticus, you will find varying sacrifices and/or offerings to be made by an individual who sins in some fashion, and in some cases restitution is required where there is injury or loss to another party, but there is no form of ritualistic...anything...that an individual might be required to do to rid himself of sin or atone for his own sin or obtain forgiveness for his sin.  That is a concept that just isn't there.  There is a sacrifice...there is removal...and it is all ultimately down to the grace of God, who forgives the one who seeks forgiveness.  There are rituals associated with cleanliness, but those things often aren't associated with sin so much as the natural course of life...an illness, dealing with a dead body,  burning garbage, etc.   There is no ritual a human can do by which she/he removes or atones for their own sin.  But under the Law, the scapegoat, by God's grace and design, carried the sins outside the camp into the desert...gone for good..

In Numbers, chapter 1, we see that God commanded a census of the people before they left

The LORD spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the Desert of  Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt.  He said, "Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one.'.... and they called the whole community together on the first day of the second month.  The people indicated their ancestry by their clans and families, and the men twenty years old or more were listed by name, one by one, as the LORD commanded Moses.  And so he counted them in the Desert of Sinai."  (Num 1: 1-2, 18b-19)  This is the first of two such census takings recorded in Numbers; that's why the book was given the name 'Numbers', to be exact.  Topically, this census is also continued in chapter 3:14, when Moses is commanded to count the males of the tribe of Levi - The LORD said to Moses in the Desert of Sinai, "Count the Levites by their families and clans.  Count every male a month old or more."

But there were two missing from the count; we see in 3:4 what happened to Aaron's two sons Nadab and Abihu -

Nadab and Abihu, however, fell dead before the LORD when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the Desert of Sinai.  They had no sons; so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of  their father Aaron. 

That account is recorded in Lev. 10, if you want to go back and read it; I have written a blog post about it before so I'll let you click through if you want to read that.  It is enough, here, to say that the Israelites had to learn to differentiate between what was holy and what was ordinary.

Finally, the last mention of the Desert of Sinai is in chapter 9, just before the Israelites depart

The LORD spoke to Moses in the Desert of Sinai in the first month of the second year after they came out of Egypt.  He said, "Have the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time."...and they did so in the Desert of Sinai at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month.  The Israelites did everything just as the LORD commanded Moses. - (Num. 9:1-2,5)

It had been a year since they left Egypt; nine months since they camped at Sinai.  In those nine months, the ragtag band of refugees became a nation with laws, a central place of worship, a chain of command...a national identity beyond just family relationship.  They were going to need it.  In Egypt, they had been sequestered away...living in a separate community, comprising a separate class.  But where they were going, there would be  a battle to maintain their boundaries and identity as the people of God.  They got all of the necessary tools at Sinai.  All they had to do was live according to the instructions God gave them through Moses...and God himself promised to defend them.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - On the Road to Horeb

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Then Moses led the people from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur.  For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.  Ex. 15:32

And, because I thought it might be interesting to throw a little side quest into it, I'm going to add the next two verses:

When they came to Mara, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah).  So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"

This is three whole days after they stood on the shore of the sea, freed by astonishing events from their captors.  Seventy-two hours after the praise dance rejoicing over their deliverance.  Now they are complaining.  And, here's the side quest...I'm going to count as we go through this desert journey.  This is the second time since leaving Egypt that the Israelites complained.  

Of course, Moses  prayed and God had him throw in a piece of wood to make the water sweet. 

Hey, I'm not explaining this.  I don't know why it worked.  God did it, the people had water, and they made it to an oasis where they camped for a bit before heading into the Desert of Sin ('Zin' in some translations).

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.  The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out to this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."  Ex. 16:2-3 (Grumble count: 3)

Then Moses told Aaron, "Say to the entire Israelite community, 'Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.' "  While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in a cloud.   Ex. 16:10

That night, quail fell on the ground and they ate meat, and the next morning, When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.  (Ex. 16:25).  The Israelites called the flakes 'manna.'  They were given instructions ..only gather enough for one day, except for the sixth day, when they were to gather enough for the seventh day as well.  There were some problems in the beginning, but the people soon caught on and fell into the routine. The final instruction regarding manna had to do with a memorial:

Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the desert when I brought you out of Egypt.' "  (Ex. 16:32).

This is the first memorial they were instructed to make.

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded.  They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.  So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink."  Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you put the LORD to the test?"  Ex. 17:1 - 2  (Grumble count: 4)

They had some more words with Moses about dying from thirst, Moses cried out to God and was given instructions to strike the rock with his staff...and they had water.  They were also attacked by the Amalekites while they were at Rephidim;  a deed that earned the Amalekites a heavy penalty.  Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands so that he could intercede for the battle  and Joshua led the army to their first military victory. 

Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, together with Moses' sons and wife, came to him in the desert, where he was camped near the mountain of God. Ex. 18:5

In addition to bringing Moses' family to him, Jethro gave Moses some excellent advice about dealing with the day-to-day administration of the people, and Moses followed that advice, designating leaders to judge disputes and answer questions.

Then, In the third month after the Israelites left Egypt - on the very day -- they came to the Desert of Sinai.  After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of  Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.  - Ex. 19: 1 - 2

So, Moses brought the people to the place where he first met God.  Three months it took them to get there...and in those three months they had seen many marvelous and incredible things.

They would camp there at the foot of the mountain for almost a whole year.

But the Israelites learned much in those three months.  They learned that God would protect them...first from the Egyptians, and then from the Amalekites; they learned that God would lead them and they learned that God would provide for them.  And, if they paid attention, they would also have learned that God heard them when they grumbled.

That should have been a comfort...and a warning.  God hears the grumbling and...God HEARS the grumbling.  Ain't nobody gonna hide a bad attitude.  God hears.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Coming out of Egypt.

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi 

I honestly have no idea how many posts are going to be generated from the Exodus; I do want to kind of keep things to one general theme per post if I can...and they may be divvied up by the actions/attitudes of the folks we're looking at.  So, today...looking at the part 'DESERT' played in the escape from Egypt.

And make no mistake, it was an escape.  The people were in forced servitude.  Back in the day, one of my kids brought home a book from a school book fair about ancient Egypt that poo-poo'ed the whole idea that the great building projects had been done with slave labor.  The text assured the reader that the laborers had been paid in beer and bread.  It may have been true that they were given some provision.  But they were not free to leave.  They were not free to choose their  occupation.  They were forced to do the labor they were doing.  They were beaten if their work was not judged adequate.  By anyone's standards...that is human trafficking.  Otherwise known as slavery.

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' "  ...Then they said, 'The God of the Hebrews has met with us.  Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."   Ex 5: 1, 3, NIV 84.

That 'three day's journey' is a key detail; it shows up again...

After 4 plagues had struck Egypt, Pharaoh attempted a compromise, telling Moses and Aaron that the people could have their worship festival and accompanying sacrifices in the land in which they dwelt. But that wasn't the request, as Pharaoh was reminded,

'We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God as he commands us.'  

Miserable with the flies that were the 4th plague, Pharaoh seemed to relent:

Pharaoh said, 'I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the LORD your God in the desert, but you must not go very far.  Now pray for me.'  Ex 8:27 -28

Of course, once the flies were gone, Pharaoh went back on his agreement and refused to let them go.  Six soul-crushing plagues later, mourning the sudden death of his firstborn, Pharaoh basically told the Israelites to get out...and they left quickly, having eaten the Passover meal packed up and ready to bug out.  But they did not go the way their forefathers had come.

So God led the people around by a desert road towards the Red Sea.  The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle....After leaving Succoth, they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert.
Ex 13:18,20

The Israelites did not stay at Etham; they turned around  and camped by the sea.  All part of God's strategy.

"Pharaoh will think , 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.'"  Ex 14:3


Pharaoh thought exactly that and sent his armies after them.  Camped between the Egyptian army, the desert, and the sea, the people complained for the first of MANY times.

They said to Moses, 'Was it because there  were no graves in Egypt that you have brought us to the desert to die?  What have you done by bringing us out of Egypt?...It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than die in the desert!"  Ex.14:11, 12b

And, for the first of many times, the Israelites saw themselves delivered by God's intervention.  I've seen many depictions of the crossing of the Red Sea; none of them pictured the Israelites straining against a strong east wind, which I am sure they did; it was the wind that dried the ground and held the water back.  A freak wind.  A God wind.  By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up.  The surging waters stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.   - Ex. 15:8

When it was over, the Israelites stood on the eastern shore and the enemy that had pursued them was no more.  They were not going back.   See, in all the interactions Moses had with Pharaoh, there was no mention of them leaving and never returning; they were to go a 3-day's journey into the desert, hold their festival, and return.  After the 9th plague, Pharaoh tried to get Moses to agree to go into the desert but leave their flocks and herds behind.  Moses said, no,  we need them all so we can make the required sacrifice.  Pharaoh ordered Moses from his sight, stating 'The day you see my face you will die!'  Moses agreed, 'I will never appear before you again.'  Then he prophesied the tenth and final plague, death of the firstborn, and that Pharaoh's officials would come to him and tell them to leave.  But there was no mention of a change of request; Moses had steadfastly maintained that they would travel for three days into the desert and hold their festival.  IE, they were to travel TO the desert, travel three days INTO the desert, hold the festival (which did not have a fixed time) and then return.  All in all, it could add up to as much as a month, give or take a few days.  Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron -- Moses did not come before him seeking audience -- and told them 'Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.  Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go.  And also bless me.'  (12:31b-32).  This is still implying the '3-days-into-the-desert journey'.  Pharaoh, by sending the army after them,  broke the agreement and chased them to the other side of the sea.  They couldn't return now.  The sea was in the way.  And it was Pharaoh's doing.

I'm not sure that fine point had ever occurred to me before this very moment; Pharaoh himself made sure the Hebrews could not return as they had implied.  He chased them into their freedom.

He had chased them into the desert. Where, as only Moses and Aaron truly knew at this point, they would encounter God.

Out of slavery into the desert.   Nobody said it is easy to leave a life of bondage; there's stuff to go through  and lessons to be learned. The desert is often the first stop out of bondage...because, even though we would never know beforehand, God is found in the desert. 

...and, so, back to school...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

A long-awaited vision is coming to pass...my church is initiating a ministry school. We've had a couple of goes at it in the past, and learned from them, and now, well, this looks to be the foundation of something that really can grow.  I'm heavily involved in the data side...tracking attendance and such.

It's a two year commitment; the first year, being the first year, is at a discounted tuition rate. They had about twice as many folks sign up as they expected.

I kinda wanted to do the worship track...but I'm not a worship leader.  Songwriting is my thing. I didn't know if I could do it for songwriting. 

I talked to the Education pastor...who is also our small group pastor...about it a couple of times.  The first year is meeting on Wednesdays, the same as our small groups.  That may change in the future, but for now, that works.  But I couldn't teach a small group if I did the class.

I finally went to him and asked him what he needed me to do.  Admin stuff?  Teach a small group? He said he would love it if I could head up the check in processes for them...and then he really surprised me by saying he'd love for me to do the worship track course designed for laymen.  I've already done the Master's degree from the correspondence school, so there wasn't much point to me doing the general ed stuff...but after a chat with the pastor leading the worship school, they all agreed that I could sit in on the worship track classes.

I figured I'd just, you know, kind of audit the class.  Observe and listen and learn.  Not really participate.  Because, you know, I'm not, like, a real student.

But tonight was orientation.  We walked everyone through practicing checking in...we have a new check in system, so even folks who had done it before needed a little coaching on what to click when.  They picked up their student welcome box and went upstairs to what was the library when our building was a high school but is now our children's sanctuary for snacks and the actual orientation class.  One volunteer and I stayed behind for about another 15 minutes to check in stragglers, then we shut down the kiosks, rolled them back to the main checkin area and went upstairs.

The volunteers had taken the unclaimed welcome boxes upstairs and I happened to walk by that table as I entered the meeting.

And I spied, with my little eye, a box with my name on it.

Y'all.  I almost cried real tears, right there.  I had a box...just like everybody else.  I don't know why that hit me so hard.  I guess I had visions of myself being, well, kind of tolerated in the program.  But instead...I got a welcome box.  I truly did not expect one, since, well, I wasn't a 'real student'.

I had a paradigm shift.  Why was I there?  I was there because someone in leadership said, 'I want you to do this.'  It was beyond permission...it was enabling (That word does not always mean a bad deal).  I had just taken it as permission to sit in.  The box meant I could participate and dig in and not be afraid that someone would take it wrong.  Suddenly, I didn't think of this as something I had maneuvered myself into.  I didn't do anything, really, other than follow up with what was suggested.  So if I didn't really put myself here...then that means Someone Else arranged things.

And I would be treating that opportunity with disrespect if I did not dig and study and push myself to do things I really can't do.  Even if it means doing something badly in front of folks who do that something very well. 

I have experienced humiliation before.  It is not fatal.  And if there is freedom/empowerment/ release on the other side, it will even be worth it. 

Blogging BibleStudy - Digging in the Desert: Desert Calling

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The first two chapters of Exodus tell the backstory of Moses...where and what he came from and  how he happened to be where he was at the start of chapter three...saved from infanticide by a shrewd but faith-filled mama and quick-thinking older sister, raised in luxury and supremely educated, only to have his first attempt to Do The Right Thing blow up on him and send him into exile as a shepherd.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.   (3:1)

Moses wasn't just in the desert...he was on the far side of the desert.  I have often wondered if  that place was known as 'the mountain of God' before Moses's experience there, or if that's what it was called later.  Because God was there...and he commissioned Moses to go and do what he failed to do so many years earlier...save his people from their Egyptian overlords.

...then you and the elders are to go to the King of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us.  Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God.' (3:18)

Moses protested...and God relented enough to allow Aaron to be the spokesperson, since Moses, for all his education, apparently had a speech impediment.   God did not allow Moses to turn down the assignment;  Moses was  not allowed to live out his days in obscurity while someone else confronted Pharaoh.  But he was given help.

The LORD said to Aaron, 'Go into the desert to meet Moses.'   So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. (4:27)

The help came to him in the desert.  It was a confirmation of what God had told him. 

And Moses and Aaron left the desert and went back to Egypt. It's worth noting that, if they were successful, they would return to the very same spot...the mountain of God on the far side of the desert...bringing others with them:

And God said, 'I will be with you.  And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you:  When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you [plural] will worship God on this mountain.' 3:12

I am very much reminded of my own desert experiences, my own inclination to want to retire to 'the far side of the desert' and be...safe...from my own foibles.  Those times when my own attempts to Do The Right Thing backfire and do more harm than good, spoiling not only that opportunity but messing with relationships that I value.  I can't hurt anything...or anyone...on the far side of the desert, can I?

But God tells us, in the desert, that our failings and flaws are not disqualifications from His calling.  He will send us help if we need it, to go bring others to the place where He met us...

Skipped the Week

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Well, I did not get the next installment in the Desert Study yesterday because...it was my wedding anniversary (39 years, thanks for asking).

My office is closed on Fridays; My Sweet Babboo took the day off and we spent the better part of the day wandering about the local Botanical Gardens.  We have annual passes, but can't seem to make use of it other than for the discounts on special events, like the Christmas Lights display.  So, once MSB told me he was planning to take the day off, it seemed like a good way to just spend some time together.

The Huntsville Botanical Gardens opened in 1988 and has really, really grown.  I think the last time we spent a day wandering was back in, oh, 2009 or something like that (I just went and checked, because I posted about it on the sewing blog.  2006.  Oy.  And that dogwood succumbed to a tree disease  a few years later)  Amazing how much it has changed  since then.

'Moses Rocks' -- my name for them.  If I ever have a yard fountain it would be one of those.

So, we had a nice day racking up steps on the fitbits, lol.  It's nice to remind ourselves that a nice time together doesn't have to involve packing stuff up and going somewhere else.

 

 Iconic view from the walkway in the Water Garden

 This unique piece is on the very edge of the garden and goes nowhere.  Interesting....

In the butterfly house.

I'll pick back up with the Desert Study next Friday. 

Conference Approaches...Kingdom Sisterhood 2019

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The first major women's conference our church held was in the fall of 2001. That also happened to be the final nudge that convinced My Sweet Babboo and me that this was to be our family's next place of service.We'd been in our previous church for 20 years; moving to a new congregation was...a process.

Our church has had a major women's conference every year since, with the exception of 2005, when we took all the funds designated to host the conference and put it towards hurricane relief to help those who had lost everything to Katrina.  In 2008 we had a shift in the women's ministry; the conference that year was called SHE Revolution (SHE = 'Seeking His Embrace')...which led to the women's ministry coming under a new vision and a new moniker...She Revolution.  Over the years, it's kind of morphed into 'She Women's ministries'.

A key piece to the puzzle was the 2013 (I think?) Color Sisterhood conference in Sydney, Australia.  Somewhere around 30 women from our church went...including a number of our lady pastors (pastoring is a couple's calling here; husbands and wives serve together.  Same for deacons and elders.  Not getting into the background of it, just explaining the culture so the terms make sense.).  That conference heavily influenced the direction our women's ministry took in the years following.

This year's conference, then, is probably a direct result of the seeds sown in 2013.  It's titled 'Kingdom Sisterhood' and at our first leadership prayer time leading up to the conference we were all given an assignment:  to read Bobbie Houston's book on sisterhood.

So I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived over the weekend.

I started reading immediately; there really isn't much time between now and the conference (Sept 6 - 7) so I thought I should get on it.

But I have a confession to make.

I can hardly say 'Kingdom Sisterhood' without getting a lump in my throat and a heavy sting in my eyelids.  See, I do not have a good history with this 'sisterhood' thing.  It grieves me that I am not good at it, but there it is.

You folks who have been reading the blog for a long time will know this; I talk about it from time to time....that self-protection wall I have that keeps relationships safe. And by safe...I mean, hopefully,  so that my bull-in-the-china-shop tendencies will not overstep those boundaries and I won't hurt someone's feelings without realizing I've done it.  I do not always succeed.  There have been conferences in which I have sat in the back, well away from others, and cried myself into a state of complete sinus shutdown. Because of this whole I'm-not-good-at-sisterhood thing.  Oh, there were specifics to each time that reflected current events but at the core of it...was that.  My ability to offend people without even trying, to so completely fail to explain something  that I left folks with the sure knowledge that I thought something/felt something/expected something that had nothing whatever to do with my actual thoughts, feelings or expectations.

My friends, this is ridiculous.  And it has to stop.  I have to get it.  This is the thing I wanted to leave in Israel...that social awkwardness that has plagued me since elementary school.  I didn't know it would rise up and slap me in the face quite so quickly or emotionally, but here I am.

So you know, this is sort of an accountability thing here.  I have GOT to get over this blocking hill.  I have to figure out how to deal with my inevitable faux pas in a healthier way.  I am surely not the only person who does this sort of thing...but pulling back and retreating and...sitting in the dark back seats alone...is not the way handle it.

Sort of like swimming...someone who knows how to swim won't be afraid of water.  Someone who knows how to deal with conflict and miscommunication won't be afraid of close relationships.

It's time to stomp that down...and let it stay stomped down.

And experience Kingdom Sisterhood.

Blogging Bible Study: Desert Digging - Genesis

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, you know how I said last week that  by today I would either have a plan, or we'd jump right in and see where it goes?

Yeah, well, I think the plan is going to be to just jump in.

I pulled out the concordance and wrote down every reference listed for 'desert' in the NIV and started looking them up.

I disregarded any that were purely geographical...IE, something describing boundaries that listed a desert.  I was looking for primarily for stuff that happened in or because of a desert.  It's kind of a slow process; I'm currently up to Numbers.  It looks like the trip from Egypt to the Promised land is probably going to require multiple posts.  I'll know what I want to do with that once I finish looking up all the references through Deuteronomy.

But, for today, I'm going to talk about the desert in Genesis. There are only 5 references...and 3 of them involve Hagar/Ishmael.  That's kind of interesting.

First, Hagar ran away because Sarai, her mistress who had never been harsh to her, suddenly turned  unreasonable.  She made it as far as the spring by the road to Shur, in the desert (Gen 16:7).

I could probably camp right here., because the whole story of Sarai/Sarah and Hagar is very intriguing to me, and this is the incident that inspired the name of the whole blog, after all... but I'm going to try and focus on what happened in the desert...away from the oasis where there was some degree of security and comfort.

Look at the phrasing in verse 7 -- The angel of the LORD found Hagar.  Ok, semantics...usually when the scripture says 'The angel of the LORD', it's generally accepted to mean a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, as opposed to 'an angel from the LORD', which could be any of the heavenly host sent on a task.  So we will go with that.  It was Jesus, before he was Jesus... and he FOUND her.  He wasn't out for a evening walkabout in the desert...he went to her on purpose.  Looking for her.  Seeking her.  She was involved in a man's plan to bring about God's will...instead of God's plan...and yet God cared for her and sent her back.  He could have let her die in the desert, and her child with her, to stop the division and conflict that had already started, but he didn't.  It was Abraham's child,  and he mattered; Hagar was a slave who may not even have been completely willing to play the surrogate mother role...and she mattered.  He saved her life, but told her to change her attitude (...go back to your mistress and submit to her - vs.9)  as it was her attitude that had provoked Sarai to treat her harshly.  The Angel didn't condemn her for what she had done, but he did instruct her to do better.

So Hagar went back, with the promise  that she would be the ancestress of descendants too numerous to count...and a puzzling, if not downright disturbing, prophecy about Ishmael.  How well did she implemented her instructions?  Well, she did at least superficially, anyway.  But Ishmael grew up contrary.  Sarah caught him doing something that disturbed her so deeply she asked Abraham to send him and his mother away.  Abraham sought God on it and God confirmed Sarah's request..  So we see the next desert reference in 21:14 --

 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar.  He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy.  She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

Hagar wandered until the skin of water was gone.  She and Ishmael,who had to have been somewhere between 14 and 19 years old,  were near death when the angel of God spoke to her again...this time, from heaven...and renewed the promise to make Ishmael into a great nation.   Encouraged, Hagar suddenly perceived a nearby well, so she filled the skin, gave Ishmael a drink and they survived.    They may have just hung out there in the vicinity of the well for a while; verse 20 tells us God was with the boy as he grew up.  He lived in the desert and became an archer.  We see in verse 21 that  While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.  

Hagar met God in the desert.  She was desperate, and he found her there, called to her there.  Ishmael made the desert his home. He learned to live there.   God was with them, watching over them.  He had promised Abraham to do so.

There are two more verses in Genesis that specifically reference the desert.  In the list of the descendants of Esau, we find a guy named Anah, who was apparently something of a folk hero...

This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the desert while he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.  (Gen 36:24) ...although the marginal reading says this could be interpreted 'discovered water' and the King James translates it 'found the mules'.  Whichever it was, he was known for doing it when Genesis was finally written down.  He found something in the desert so remarkable that folks talked about it for years and years and years.

Finally, for the final verse for our look at 'Desert' in Genesis, we have 37:22 -

"Don't shed any blood.  Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him."  Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

This, of course, happens in the story of Joseph and his jealous brothers.  I hadn't thought much about cisterns until going to Israel and seeing the extreme severity of the desert, and hearing of elaborate water works in various places so that any rainwater would be collected in cisterns.  We saw some of the cisterns along the western wall excavations;  we were told of the cistern system on Masada to insure there would be water on the plateau there.  Cisterns were man-made covered pits, often with channels or canals that collected runoff from distant sources and brought the water to the cistern. Some were pretty amazing feats of engineering; but apparently they are quite common in the area...if you know what to look for.  I poked around a bit online and found that the Nabataeans invented a waterproof cement well before the Romans that they used to line the cisterns they dug. In any case, the shepherds of a region would know the location of the cisterns so they would know where to find water as they moved the flocks around.  It probably was no coincidence that Joseph found his brothers near a cistern, even though the cistern Joseph was thrown into happened to be empty at the time. Reuben wasn't there when Joseph was pulled from the cistern and sold as a slave, so his plan to rescue his half-brother didn't work out.  But...Joseph's journey began in the desert.  He couldn't know it, but he was on his way  to becoming the second in command of  Egypt.

One could,  I suppose, argue the point that most of the area is desert-like, so any significant things would, of course, happen in the desert in those early years.  But those things specifically happened away from settlements, away from civilization.  The ESV translates the  word 'desert' as 'wilderness', perhaps to emphasize the fact that this was more than just a dry spot...it was a dry, uninhabited place.  A hostile place that could kill you if you didn't know what you were about or couldn't find water.  Yet, in the desert...Hagar met God and was cared for; Anah found something remarkable, and Joseph began his journey to his destiny.