Are you getting restless? Is it time to start doing something? I don’t know about you, but staying home all the time is getting tedious. My friends who have housemates (spouses, kids, roommates) tell me that it’s getting harder and harder to avoid arguments. One wants to stop wearing masks, another wants so badly to see the grandkids and give them hugs… Someone says, “oh I can’t wait to go to Friendly’s; I LOVE their coleslaw”, and the next thing you know there’s an argument brewing. I hate coleslaw” or “Friendly’s? Don’t you mean Slowly’s? I wouldn’t eat there if it were the last place on earth.” And so the pointless argument begins.
<sigh> When the Israelites escaped from Egypt, the journey to their Promised Land took forty years. That’s a long time to be wandering in the desert, a long time to not know when the journey would end. In the book of Numbers, we can see that it began to get them down and they complained . . and complained:
Numbers 11:4-6 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, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
We remember the spring trips to the newly-opened ice cream spot, or the anticipated trip to Fenway, the visit of kids and grandkids, and all those other things we’ve put off until “don’t know when”. The Israelites were getting food – good food, free food, good-tasting manna – from God. But after a while even that paled, and they yearned for seafood dinners in restaurants. They yearned to worship together and sing. Just like us.
Well, the story from Numbers says that God responded by giving them so much good (in their case, quails) that they got sick from the good. And doesn’t that say something to us as we get anxious to get back to the good we know and love? Take our time, be careful, find ways to work off the “gotta get out of the house” itchies so that we can stay in good relationship with all.
Easter blessings, Pastor Virginia
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 