Whoo, it's been a busy month. This 'occasional' blog had been even more infrequent, BUT finals are over and I have a couple of weeks before the fun begins with a three-week intensive class (while working 3/4 time at the office).
So, to prepare for the grudge-match of a summer session, I'm reading ahead for my class "Preaching and Teaching the Book of Numbers." To be sure, on the surface it's not a page-turner. But it seems about the time I've almost completely zoned out, something gets my attention. That's what happened with Numbers 9:15-23.
For those of you not keeping track at home, this is the tidbit in which Moses and company have set up the tabernacle and this cloud thingy appears over the tent of the covenant. Whenever the cloud lifts, the assembly packs up and moves to its next destination. How do they know when they've arrived? The cloud appears again. It looks like a cloud by day and has a firey appearance by night.
So, the people of Israel had a personal realtionship with Yahweh that would have them move ahead and take a rest, then the cycle would continue again...and again...and again.
I've glossed over this passage before, but this time it got me thinking of the individual human analogy, more directly, my own sometimes shaky relationship with Yahweh. It occurred to me that even in my cloudy days/years, I've never doubted the presence of God. Irritated by God, sure, but never in doubt that there was a very annoying God out there/in me somewhere. Then there's some subtle breakthrough, a lifting of the clouds, as it were, and I pack up my baggage and bumble along again until I've reached a foggy place where I have to hang out for days, months or even years before there's a breakthrough and I can journey further into the wilderness.
Carl Jung would be most pleased that four decades into life, I've been able to see the connection.
