clouds and fire

Funny, funny, very funny. Not "haha funny", but "interesting funny".

Today SJKC called to say she had some mail. SHOCK. Disbelief. We actually didn't know what to do with ourselves. If you only knew the schemes we were hatching JUST before she called.

Then, funny funny, interesting funny...tonight in my reading (Num 9) the passage hammers a theme over and over, at least eight times, to the point of exasperation: God instructs his people through clouds and fire. Cloud by day, fire by night. They move when the cloud and fire moves. They camp out when the cloud and fire are still. And they wait and wait til the cloud and fire move again...whether it's a day, a month or a year of waiting. WAITING! All that waiting!! They're trying to get to the promised land after all--what GOD promised himself!!!!! But sometimes, he makes them wait. And then, without much advanced notice, he has them go, and then wait again. What's the dealio? Mysterious ways.

“In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of all the house of Israel during their travels.” Exodus 40