Hilarious!

Have you ever gotten really tickled reading something from the Holy Bible? I did last night. I read two passages in Numbers, of all places, that had me laughing all night long. Neither of them were dealing with issues that were particularly funny, but the way they were phrased just tickled me to pieces!

Here is the first. Let me give you the context. (This all comes from Numbers 11.) Moses has lead the people out of Egypt and they are camped in the Wilderness of Paran (wherever that is, forgive me, but the geography of the ancient middle east is beyond me most of the time.) They have already complained about lack of food one time, and so God has provided manna for them to eat. Now, they are desperate to eat some MEAT! As the Bible phrases it they "yielded to intense craving". That sounds kind of like how I feel when there is chocolate in my house! This intense craving caused them to grumble and complain to the extent that they were weeping at the doors of their houses. Hah! I have yet to be that desperate for chocolate, but I should probably hush, because the day may come!

I'll be serious for just a moment. All of this weeping had some serious consequences. The "anger of the LORD was greatly aroused; Moses was also displeased." But it is Moses' response to God that just cracked me up. Maybe it's because I have felt the same way before.

Numbers 11:11-15

"So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have you afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me "Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child" to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying "Give us meat, that we may eat." I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now--if I have found favor in your sight--and do not let me see my wretchedness!"

It is cracking me up all over again just to type it. I can so relate! When my oldest is crying all over me with some ridiculous and impossible request that is completely out of my control to grant, and the baby is screaming bloody murder for some mysterious reason, there have been times when I wanted to say "please kill me here and now." The "if I have found favor in your sight" is just icing on the this-is-too-much-for-any-sane-person cake! (Don't misunderstand me, I love my kiddies, but if you are an honest mom, you have been there too. Or maybe you are just blessed with more well behaved kids than I am!)

It gets even better. Wait until you hear how God responds to their whining.

Numbers 11: 19-20

"You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you,"

That was such an unexpected sentence that it cracked me up all over again! Can't you just picture an angry mom saying the exact same thing! "You want cookies! Fine, you eat every cookie in this jar until your stomach hurts and you never want to see another cookie again! You eat those cookies until your face turns green and you want to puke them all up in the kitchen sink!"

Please, please, all two of you who read this blog, don't report me to the authorities. I have never said or done that to my babies. But I'll admit, there have been moments...

So then the story takes a decidedly unfunny turn. Well, really none of the situation is funny. It's not really funny to grumble and complain against God. But I think you have enough sense to get what I am describing--the humor that sometimes occurs in our every day interactions with God.

Here's the part that is deadly serious.

Numbers 11: 32-34

"And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten homers); and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was aroused against the people, an the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving."

Yup, nothing funny about that part. Point noted, don't go around arousing the wrath of the LORD. Can I just say that I am very thankful to have been born in a generation under the covenant of grace?