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Audio from The Heart of the Story
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The Story in Review- Chapter Six
Chapter Six is entitled “Wandering.” What does this mean? Good Lutheran question and good question to ask in regard to the word wandering and the experience of the Israelites. What does it mean that the Israelites were wandering? For some wandering connotes being lost. Clearly those who trailed the pillar of cloud and fire, who followed Moses, who were well aware where Egypt was and what lay beyond the Jordan, the Promised Land, were not physically lost. For others wandering brings to mind aimlessness. The story relates the steps, tracks the progress and lack thereof, it records the date (time in the desert) and the wait (time till the conquest began) and clearly in so doing the Bible does not paint a picture of physically aimlessness. There are those who hear the word wandering and associate it with a lack of knowing. The Israelites were aware of where they came from and where they were headed; “From the land of bondage to the one flowing with milk and honey.” So obviously it would be hard to say physically they lacked knowledge about the destination.
Yet, there is no better title for this chapter than wandering. The reason the Israelite community found themselves in the desert for four decades was the fact that they doubted that they could take the land, (thus failing to believe that God could deliver it and instead believing that all was lost) they detested their conditions and provisions, (thus refusing to be content with what God had given as if His purpose was aimless) and they decried the LORD’S calendar and concern, (thus grumbling and complaining that God had let them down and didn’t know what He was doing.)
es, indeed there is no better title for this chapter than wandering, not because of the physical location of the Israelites but the Spiritual disposition of the Israelites. That is how this Story relates to ours. For we have settled in a land flowing (with the exception of traffic at the 405, 22, 605 interchange) with milk and honey; while cost of living is high and the population base even higher, you must admit this is a pretty good land we’ve settled in here in the greater LB area. However, even when you are settled in a land of promise you can be wandering, for the wandering of God’s people is far less about their physical location than it is their spiritual disposition.