Shrine of the red rocks, Sedona, Arizona. Picture by David Combs
The Holy Spirit inspired our blog.
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Extraordinary Time
The LORD said to Moses [in the desert of Paran,]
“Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan,
which I am giving the children of Israel.
You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe,
all of them princes.”
After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned,
met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel
in the desert of Paran at Kadesh,
made a report to them all,
and showed the fruit of the country
to the whole congregation.
They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us.
It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit.
However, the people who are living in the land are fierce,
and the towns are fortified and very strong.
Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there.
Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb;
Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands,
and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.”
Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said,
“We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.”
But the men who had gone up with him said,
“We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.”
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel
about the land they had scouted, saying,
“The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants.
And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants
(the Anakim were a race of giants);
we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”
At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries,
and even in the night the people wailed.
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:
“How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me?
I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me.
Tell them: By my life, says the LORD,
I will do to you just what I have heard you say.
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall.
Forty days you spent in scouting the land;
forty years shall you suffer for your crimes:
one year for each day.
Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me.
I, the LORD, have sworn to do this
to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me:
here in the desert they shall die to the last man.”
Emphasis mine Nm 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
We included the complete first reading because we believe what happened at the time of Moses is happening now.
Go to the top of the reading and notice the twelve come back and say the land God wants to give them is full of milk, honey, and the fruit had to be put on poles and carried between two men (Not in the reading).
Milk and honey symbolizes the food that something else makes, milk cows and honey bees.
God has just defeated the most powerful army in the world without the Jewish nation lifting a finger.
Now they see large men and are thrown into fear.
Notice God is not pleased and condemns them to die over forty years in the desert.
Is this true today?
I believe it is for many living today who deny there is a Triune God, deny God the Father sent His son to climb up on a cross and take with Him our sins so we might be justified to His Father.
We also live in a land of milk and honey.
I open our refrigerator each day and say a prayer thanking God for the choices we, Gail, and I are presented with, for which we have no other job but to prepare the food for eating.
The giants that we face are political and societal, telling us our lifestyle is not in sync with the “worlds” and we should stop living in the “Spirit World” and change to a better (?) lifestyle.
Love, Joy, and Peace tell me how wrong they are, and I, for one, will not change.
I will NOT go back to making mud pies in the slum; I CHOOSE to stay on holiday at the Sea. (C.S. Lewis)
If you want to join Team Jesus, try praying. “This is the day the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.”
Sidebar:
Rabbi Jason Sobel:
In Rabbi Jason Soble’s book Mysteries of the Messiah, Rabbi Soble compares Jesus to Moses, which I found fascinating.
Consider that Moses asked to see God, and God told Moes to face a cliff, and the shadow of God would pass by Moses. No other prophet experienced this.
God and Moses talked to each other to the point that Moses’s physical appearance changed, and Moses had to cover his face so the Jewish people could speak to him.
That unique sign of Moses’s appearance change set him apart from all other prophets.
The Book of John is structured around seven Miracles, some of which are recorded nowhere else in the Gospels. The following outlines the seven miracles in John’s Gospel and how they correlate to the miracles performed by Moses.
Jesus: Jesus changes the water in the seven jars to the finest wine. Jn 2:1-11
Moses: Moses changed the water in the Nile River to Blood. Ex 4:9
Jesus: Healing the nobleman’s son. Jn: 4: 43-54
Moses: Stopping the Plague. Num 16: 44-50 ( this was a plague to punish the Jewish people for their insubordination.)
Jesus: Healing the man at the Bethesda pool Jn 5:1-15
Moses: Leading the faithful to the promised land. Ex 16
Jesus: Feeding the five thousand. Jn 6; 1-15
Moses: Feeding the People manna. Ex 16
Jesus: Walking on the water. Jn 6: 16-21
Moses: Parting the Red Sea. Ex 14:21
Jesus: Healing the man born blind. Jn 9; 1-12
Moses: Bringing darkness to Egypt, the ninth plague. Ex 10:21-23
Jesus: Raising Lazarus from the dead. Jn 11: 1-46
Moses: Killing the firstborn of Egypt, the tenth plague. Ex 11:4-7
Rabbi Sobel goes on to add much more detail to the above outline.
I have never linked these events, which is why I said in a prior blog that I feel like I am walking the road to Emmaus with Jesus.
I am not suggesting I understand everything happening in the above, but I am filled with Joy at this discovery.
Picture:
I just had to respond after you changed your “Get behind me, satan” and added, “Fill me up, Holy Spirit!!” I also have begun to start every day by saying, “This is the Day the Lord God has made. Rejoice and be Glad”. I truly think this changes my mindset for the better every single day. So simple, yet so important.
You have written so many blogs that have really struck me!! All the times, you mentioned the prisoners who never had love in their life previously. That is a point of view that makes me look at everyone differently, trying to understand what cross they have to bear every day. It can make me stop and think that why they live today the way they do is based on their past. In short, Please know that some guy in Detroit, Michigan reads your blogs every week and never is disappointed. Thank you for what you (I mean WE) do!! KEEP IT UP!!! Picture by David Combs
I, yes I, did not print David’s total comment for my glory.
We printed David’s total comment because David listened to the Holy Spirit when he was encouraged to read our blog,
And,
When The Holy Spirit encouraged David to learn our prayers, and as you read David’s comment, you can feel the Joy that fills his life.
How about you?
Please keep Snapping!
Several people from foreign countries have asked for my email address, but I am still waiting to hear back. We decided to include my email for your convenience.
If you want a copy of the prayers we discussed, email me.
fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, no people, please, because we have to get permission from that person to use their photograph. By sending your picture, you consent to allow us to reprint that picture in our next book, God Thoughts 2023, with your name and any comments in the Blog.
