Today I read Deuteronomy 1 where Moses begins his retelling of the journeyings that the Israelites have endured these past forty years. He starts at the time that the spies went into Israel to view the land and its inhabitants. Moses reminds them that they were not pleased by what they saw. That they were scared and rejected the land that God had given them.
I'm sure no one really needed reminding of why they had spent the better part of their lives wandering around in the desert instead of enjoying the land of their inheritance. However, Moses is about to pass away and wants to give them one last talking to, similar to Lehi before he passed away. Moses reminds the children of Israel that even after they had rejected God, they still disobeyed Him even further by going to attack the inhabitants of the land once they realized their mistake despite God telling them not to. And they were routed big time.
The Israelites in this story remind me of nothing so much as a teenager. Not doing what their parents tell them, and then turning around when it's too late and doing it anyway trying to make up for their mule headedness. It's sad that it caused so many deaths although the point of the forty years of wandering was waiting for that generation to all die off so it's not TOO horrible really. Death is death whether by old age, poisoned serpents or battle. The people I really feel sorry for are the children who had to wander for forty years because of their parents mistakes. They paid the price for a choice they didn't even make. A very real lesson we can learn from the Israelites. Our choices don't affect just us. They affect all of our loved ones. The age old excuse that it's our life, we can do what we want with it, or that it is not hurting anyone but me are lies. Everything we do always affects someone else. If we all would remember that, our lives would be so much better and our choices would be better too. Until tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment