Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard, beside the emblems of his father's house, they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting.
God is all about order.
He is a God of order and always (remember this) always brings order out of chaos.
Genesis chapter 1 is a prime example.
A creation that is , according to God's own words, formless, empty, and covered in darkness.
Sounds like chaos to me.
God begins to speak....
His words were not suggestions or hint's. They were power. They were commands.
The very elements of this world submitted themselves to the word of God, and begin to line up in fashion and order that He desired of them.
God is a God of order.
Even down to the little things, like we find in the book of Numbers.
Little things like the arrangement of the camp when the Hebrews would stop in their journey.
Every person, every tribe had a place they were to occupy. Maybe real life today is like that. I mean, after all, we are on a journey through this life. If you look around, society and culture seem to be a wilderness of sorts. So maybe the arrangement of our daily life should fall under the care and concern of God and not rest upon our own decisions and wants.
One of the chief concerns when someone begins their journey in recovery and with Jesus, is the simple fact that all understanding (if any) about God and who He is has been buried under the daily life that took place in their addiction. There was a lifestyle that defined their daily movement. It became so normal to the addict that they could see no other way to live. Addiction is a call to live a selfish life. To live unto yourself...to meet whatever need and desire comes up. To throw aside every moral restraint and teaching you may have ever received in order to get what you want. In other words, addiction is a descent into chaos. The longer you live this way, the greater the chaos. The scary part in all of this, is the ability of the human mind and soul to convince a person that this normal. After all, everyone else you know lives this way. In the addicts mind, everyone does drugs. I hear that phrase over and over and over. "Hey! Everyone does drugs!" That becomes the mantra for their lifestyle. The excuse and reason to not change. But you know the strange thing is that I've never known anyone who loves the chaos of addiction. It becomes such an overpowering thing that it eventually either kills or causes one to look for a way out.
Just a the Hebrews were delivered from Egypt (and slavery), and taken to a place to learn a new way of living, the same is true for anyone in addiction. God will rescue you out of the darkness. But there are some new ways you have to learn in order to move forward in this new life. You are no longer a part of Egypt (addictive lifestyle). You no longer have anything in common with that old life. You must leave it. That means you have to cut all ties with it. People, places and things that use to be a part of it, are now cast aside in order to learn this new way. Just as the Hebrews had to learn where they were to camp and set up their homes, we must learn how to follow even the simplest of God's directions. Learning the simple helps us to lay hold of those things that would seem harder to follow. We are learning how to live again.
Just like the picture above, the only way to this new life of order and purpose is to enter through the Father heart of God. That would be Jesus. Jesus is the door. Jesus is the way. Jesus is truth....combine all of these and you have the ultimate truth that Jesus is the Life!
Think on these today.
God on you...
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