Day 27: Numbers 5-8
"The LORD said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron and his sons, "This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
'The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.'
So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them."
--Numbers 6: 22-27
God gave this blessing to the Israelites. Isn't that a bit odd that God gave this blessing to the Israelites? A blessing that involved God blessing them, making his face shine on them, being gracious to them, turning his face toward them, and giving them peace. Yes, Aaron was the one that delivered this blessing to the Israelites, but God was the one who came up with it.
Regardless of how the blessing was given to Israel, God wanted them to know that they were His. That He put His name on the Israelites. Once again, God is giving the Israelites an identity. This time the identity involves God, graciousness, and peace, all while in the arms of God who is blessing them and keeping them.
As an extension of the promise, we, too, are given this blessing. But what's interesting is that we can now give this blessing to others. If you have ever been to opening or closing chapel at ACU, for instance, you have this blessing sung as a song. At the beginning of the year and at the close of the year, we gathered together in Moody Coliseum to sing "The Lord Bless You and Keep You." It's a tradition.
At the beginning of the Fall semester, this song was a message of hope. Hope for a blessed year. Hope that when things were to get bad or hard or busy--as all college semesters happen to do--we could look to God and He would bring us peace.
At the end of the year, the song had a different feeling to it. A different tone. We were all about to depart to different areas of the world and spend our summers in various ways. The song became a blessing of sending. A way to be sent out into the world. To remember that the Lord wants blessing for us. A way for us to bless each other as we depart ways and, hopefully, do good things for the Lord.
This blessing that God gave to the Israelites keeps on giving thousands of years later. Even in bad circumstances, which the Israelites surely faced as they wandered in the desert, they could remember this blessing. They could remember that the Lord wanted good things for them.
And so, too, can we. As we wander through our own deserts of pain and suffering, we can look to this blessing and we can remember. We can remember that God loves us and that he blesses us--then and now. And He can bring us peace.
During the past year and a half, I experienced many deserts. I wondered where God was and what He was doing to bring me out of my desert. I also wondered why he would let things happen like they did with the church plant and why he wasn't blessing our church in the way we wanted. After reading these first three books of the Bible, though, what I better understand is that God was wandering right there with me, just like He did with the Israelites. He never left them; in fact, during their desert time is when He gave them this blessing. He didn't shorten their wandering, though, just because they were experiencing hard times. Yet he did bless them. He gave them what they needed most--an identity in the Lord.
And now that I have journeyed from deep in the middle of a desert to a place that is much more fertile and cultivated, I can see how this experience--the literal things that took place as well as the spiritual journey I was on--shaped and formed me. I appreciate this blessing in ways that I could have never articulated before. I can appreciate how my own journey paralleled that of the Israelites, and this fact brings me comfort. I can also see how God has finally brought me peace, a peace that I would have never known on my own but only through his blessing and his work.
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