"Dear God: If I may make a suggestion…" (part 2)

The Word for today:
Numbers 13:1-14:10a

Often, especially in the historical books of the Old Testament (Genesis through Esther) scripture doesn’t editorialize. It just lays out the facts and expects us to apply over-riding spiritual principles to them. Unless we apply these biblical principles, we can completely misconstrue the passages we are reading.

Yesterday, in Numbers 11, we read that Moses, feeling overwhelmed, complains to the LORD that his duties are too much to bear. So God appoints 70 assistants to help him carry the load.

Just because God agrees to appoint the 70 does not mean that Moses had a better idea. By saying yes to Moses' suggestion, God is exercising what theologians call his “permissive will.”

He allows Moses’ request, but the reader can infer that when Moses’ spirit is divided among the 70 elders, there is no more power, just more machinery. What results is not a power profusion, but a power diffusion.

Moreover, the reader can hear the subtle note of ingratitude and unbelief in Moses’ request, implying that perhaps God wasn’t doing His best for Moses.

God’s “directive will” was that the power of Moses’ spirit be undivided. But why? Why hadn’t God come up with the great idea of the seventy elders in the first place?

These questions go unanswered for over 1500 years, until we find that Moses’ complaint gave rise to what would later be called the Sanhedrin, which voted to have Jesus Christ crucified.

What we must take from these lessons is that it’s alright to pray for guidance and support from God, but we must be sure that our requests are not issuing from unbelief or ingratitude.

God, by his permissive will, sometimes allows a ‘Yes’ to our pleas and prayers and suggestions -- when the ‘No’ he directed in the first place was better.

For a further example, we do not need to look any further than the very next incident in chapter 11. When the people complained of manna, the daily food that God provided, God acquiesced to their complaints, promising he would send delicious quail into the camp in super-abundance--

until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, "Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?" (Numbers 11:20)

We learn from Psalm 106:15, which comments on this incident, that He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.

We must always pray, to the degree that we can, from faith and gratitude. Because when we begin to think our suggestions could improve God’s program, he just might (as a means of loving instruction) allow our bright ideas to play themselves out…

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