At first glance this passage seemed pretty unexciting to me, and I was tempted to skip it. I am so glad I didn’t because as I read the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and my eyes filled with tears. Some of the thoughts that came to mind (not in any particular order) were that…
God keeps a record of my journey here on earth as I head toward my heavenly abode. As His child, my life is important to Him. He cares about my every step and my every milestone. Psalm 56, Psalm 139 and Malachi 3 came to mind as I read. All three are beautiful testimonies of the love our God has for us, His children.
8 You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?—Psalm 56:8
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.—Psalm 139:16-18
16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another,
And the LORD listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the LORD
And who meditate on His name.—Malachi 3:16
When I was younger, there was much about my life and the lives of my little ones that I thought I would never forget. Now that I am older, I see that the dailiness of life in this fallen world can blur our memories and cause them to run together. I remember more impressions and generalities but not necessarily the specifics.
Reading God’s testimony of the Israelite’s journey reminded me of how much I have wished over the years that I had kept a journal..especially when my kids were little. Every moment and milestone of their growing up was precious to me. It would have been a blessing to my heart and to theirs to have left to them a book of memories to look back on and remember how very much they were loved. It is a comfort to my heart to know that my God has done just that. My journey, like the Israelite’s journey, is also His journey because He goes with me. He has been there for all of it. How thankful I am that He records it. It is just one more way that He shows me how much I am loved.
Here is what I didn’t see when I read. Warren Wiersbe helped here.
“The Lord commanded Moses to keep a list of the places Israel camped during their wilderness journey. Forty places are listed, starting with Rameses in Egypt (Num. 33:3) and ending with the plains of Moab, across from Jericho (v. 49). Israel’s exodus from Egypt is recorded in verses 3-4, and their march to and through the Red Sea in verses 5-8. Verses 9-15 take Israel from Marah to Mount Sinai, and verses 16-36 from Sinai to Kadesh, where, because of their unbelief, Israel failed to enter the Promised Land. Their thirty-eight years of wandering fall between verses 36 and 37 and are graciously passed over in silence. The passage from Kadesh to the plains of Moab is recorded in verses 37-49.”—Warren Wiersbe
Did you catch that? Their thirty-eight years of wandering (because of their unbelief) are graciously passed over in silence.
About those years Jon Courson says this:
“In other words, the Father records exactingly and carefully every single spot where they pitched their tents in obedience to His leading. But when they were in sin, there’s no mention, no record, no memory as far as He is concerned.
How I like that! He remembers where we’ve been, but He forgets about our sin. He edits it out of the video, throws away the slide, erases it from His journal. That’s the kind of God we serve.
Why doesn’t He remember our sin? Because He sent His Son to die on the Cross in our place and shed His blood in order that it could be cleansed. What a price the Father paid to eradicate that memory, to clean up my story.”
Beloved…
29 "Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.'—Deuteronomy 1:29-31
7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD
And the praises of the LORD,
According to all that the LORD has bestowed on us,
And the great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies,
According to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.
8 For He said, "Surely they are My people,
Children who will not lie."
So He became their Savior.
9 In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.—Isaiah 63 7-9
"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know."—John 14:1-4
