February 10 Records That Reflect

Numbers 33:2 At the Lord's command Moses recorded the stages in their journey.

Smith asks this, "Looking back through journals past, might we be surprised at where we have spiritually camped along the way?"

Spiritually camped - those words give me pause. As I reflect over the many years of my life's journey with God, I think of places where I have spiritually camped, and sometimes with regret. I think the problem has been more with the who I have been spiritually camped with than the encampment.

The problem for me has been the people to whom I have give place to influence me, and the degree of influence I have given them - even to interpret the Word for me. Part of it was due to my own spiritual immaturity, sometimes but not always tied to my own physical immaturity. I think there is something in us that seeks a leader, and sometimes we choose our leaders with less care than we might.

We choose the person we allow great influence in our life who is a great public speaker, who already has a following, perhaps who has written lots of books, or as simple as the man who is our pastor. And we give total allegiance to that person, relieved that we don't have to make any decisions on our own.

I think back to times in my life when I did something like that. I wanted so to do right that I allowed those in spiritual leadership in my life to make decisions God would hold me responsible for. I failed to hold their pronouncements up to the mirror of God's Word. I exchanged the approval of God for the approval of men....not that I think that is a completely moot issue now. I think we will always be subject to that temptation. We must be careful with whom we spiritual camp.

Then, I think of how God gave Israel festivals and memorials to remind them of momentous events in their history, to remind them of what has happened, and I admit to wishing we had more of them in our lives. Or maybe it is a matter that we do need to create them in our own lives - visible reminders of the grace of God in our lives: personal journals, pictures, collages of those moments when God spoke and we really did hear.

Mine would have a picture of a living room where I accepted Christ, of a Sunday School room at Independent Baptist Church in Towanda where I learned I could read and understand the Word of God, a tabernacle at Camp Lamoka where I gave my life to Christ for whatever he wanted to do with it, a picture of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ohio where I knew God was calling us to Chad, to a guesthouse in Koumra where God reminded me he was listening, to a lonely bed in the US when Jim was still in the middle of a civil war in Africa,  to a church in Newark Valley where God helped me to see he had called me to women, not just Chadians, and I could go on and on...records that reflect the faithfulness of God - a good exercise especially when it seems the lights are dim.