Numbers: come to your census

I thought having Leviticus punch me in the gut was bad…

I moved on to Numbers, thinking, “surely I won’t learn much here”

But again, I was schooled.

God loves numbers. He loves counting. He loves measuring. God is super good at math. I think it’s safe to say God did whisper to me the answers in Calculus when I prayed those desperate prayers before tests. 

God promises to rescue us, a lot. 

Oh and God loves to party. He likes it when we have fun, aka rejoice. 

God also loved rules back when… phew. Lots of special rules and hoops to jump through, and He made sure to communicate allllllllll of them to Moses. 

Reading Numbers, I learned a lot. I learned that I should never beat a donkey. I also learned that if a donkey ever speaks reason into me, I’m probably the one acting like a… ahem… donkey. And that people who beat donkeys end up dying by sword wound a few chapters later. 

I learned that God hates it when we reject His plan for us, especially over food preferences. I definitely had a peanut butter heart check.

God says “I am giving you the service of ____________ as a gift” in Chapter 18… serving God is a God-given gift! Thank You, Lord, for redundancy and grace!

Back in the day, God solved impatience with venomous snakes. Thank You Jesus, for sparing me from the snakes. 

I learned that one does not simply walk into Edom. If you get this reference, you are a very special breed and I love you so much. 

God loves musicals… People are always bursting into song in the Bible, even in the most random places. It adds to my amusement when I sing the songs in my own weird way. (Sidenote: if I’m reading a book by a British author, I read it with a Brit accent in my head [I kid you not!] and you should have seen me smiling while reading a book by KP Yohannan, who is from India, because [yep, you guessed it] I read it with an Indian accent in my head. I should probably add the note here that when the donkey spoke in Chapter 22, I read it with the same accent as the donkey in Shrek… and it was super funny.) I should probably make a video of me singing the Song of Moses hahaha I am ridiculous sometimes, I do acknowledge this. I think it makes Jesus laugh, so I keep on :]

So Moses and Aaron screw up big time. They disobey God and lose out on the promise land. Total bummer. 

Miriam gets leprosy for a week because she ran her mouth. Seriously, guys, we should be SO thankful for Christ. Can you imagine getting leprosy for talking some smack? We would go bananas.

Then in the end of Numbers, God has the Israelites run another census after the plagues and the battles and the epic sinner smite-a-thon that took place. 

They count all the people, they count lots of gold. 

I, in turn, counted my blessings.