“The God of the impossible”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Numbers 11:1-23 (Forward, p. 47) CEV p. 1173
How very often we ‘write off’ God, mentally deciding that there is nothing that God can do in terms of a certain problem or a particular situation. For all his closeness to God, and his familiarity with God’s ways, that was the position that we find Moses in today. He has ‘written off’ God in a couple of ways.
Firstly, he has written off God in terms of the burden of leadership, the leadership of God’s people. He has wrongly assumed that it is ‘all up to him’, that he has to bear the burden of leading and caring for this stubborn and wayward people all by himself. He feels that he alone is responsible for this whole sad lot of them. Sadly, unfortunately, he has become rather wearied, sick and tired, of the whole lot. And what a lot they are, rebellious, complaining, always thinking the worst of any situation: it is enough to give anyone the willies, enough to prompt anyone to want to throw in the towel, which is exactly what Moses wants to do. He feels sorry for himself, rather hard done by.
But then God pulls off the impossible. He recruits some help, some coworkers—yes, out of that miserable, unlikely bunch. But isn’t that exactly what Jesus did with the Twelve, an unlikely bunch if there ever was one. And isn’t that the principle that we see repeatedly in the Scriptures? God is always recruiting help for us when we feel overwhelmed, an Elisha for an Elijah, a Paul for a Barnabas, and a myriad of helpers, coworkers for Paul himself. And God is continually trying to remind us that we are not in this alone, that there is help, He wants us to realize that what seems like an impossible task for us in leadership is not an impossible task at all, but one that He wants to assist us with by adding some human help.
But then, in today’s passage, there is yet another ‘impossible’ task, which is having to feed that huge, rather unhappy, disillusioned bunch. To feed such a multitude, some 600,000 grown men--out there in the wilderness. Doesn’t that sound familiar: it is exactly what it was like for Jesus feeding the 4,000 or the 5,000? Where would someone get all that food?
But then, in both cases God has a ‘trick’ up His sleeve. He sees the possibilities where we see nothing at all. And, I happen to think that this is exactly how God still approaches life, our lives in fact. We see the problems, the insurmountable issues and challenges, the impossibilities, and He sees the possible. And, furthermore, if we allow Him, He will even pull it off—before our most astounded and astonished eyes—but only if we let Him. My prayer is that we would let Him ‘do His thing’, pull off the impossible, more and more, just as He wants to. Amen.
Forward notes: “The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing’” (verses 4-5a).
“Nostalgia has a remarkable power to erase memories. That’s not necessarily a negative thing; it helps us function well in our day-to-day lives. Nostalgia is how humans retain and are nourished by good memories while allowing some painful ones to be forgotten and others to lose their power.
“But nostalgia has its pitfalls. An individual or society can find itself seduced by an idealized past and attempt to return to a time that never existed. In the extreme, a person can fail to pay attention to the opportunities of the present, and nostalgia’s productive cousin, anticipation of a brighter future, may never materialize.
“For the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, nostalgia became a kind of prison. A once-enslaved people, missing the meat and cucumbers of Egypt, declared their strength dried up; they did not recognize manna as the divine providence it was, God’s gift to nourish them, that they might be strong and free.”
Moving Forward: “Is there really such a thing as ‘the good ole days?’ How can you preserve memory while embracing possibility?”