Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

  Moses’ Complaint pt. 2 Numbers 11:12, 14 “Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? … I am not able to carry this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.”   Another significant thought to consider from Moses’ breakdown before God in Numbers 11 is the way mental and emotional fatigue can distort our noblest, most God-inspired relationships into an unbearable, unfair burden in our perception. If we let that tension build up for too long, without giving it over to the LORD, we can become like Cain of old. So embittered in spirit, so apathetic and cold toward family members, that we’d respond to God’s call to serve with these words: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”    Think of it, friend: is it of little consequence that Moses refers to his kin as if they are distinct from him? He doesn’t say, ‘the burden of  my...

  Moses’ Complaint pt. 1 Numbers 11:11 Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?”   Unlike the shallow griping of that faction of whiners we encountered in the previous verses, Moses’ complaint here is resonant, striking a chord with every person who’s ever born the daunting responsibility of raising argumentative children or serving a faithless spouse or pastoring a dying church or leading any cantankerous group of people who raise Cain the whole way.    This is Moses at his wits end. On the verge perhaps of a nervous breakdown. You can feel the tremor in his voice through the lines of text. You can feel his knuckles tightening around his staff and choking the wooden emblem of his clerical position, just as they’d done during those final, unfruitful meetings with Pharoah. He’s fed up with all the complaining. He can’t take another word of it; and ...

  Famished Numbers 11:4-6 Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”   There’s nothing inherently evil about these pilgrims longing for fish and vegetables and spices. After all, who among us would choose to only eat honeyed wafers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all year long? God created our tastebuds. He created the natural world as a buffet for our enjoyment (think of the Garden of Eden), meaning that He  delights  to feed us with good food. In fact, He even incentivized these pilgrims to follow Him to the Promised Land by whetting their appetites with visions of a fertile land flowing with milk and honey. So, it isn’t their desire for more flavor that makes God...

  Sabbath Psalm (Adapted from George Matheson’s hymn ‘O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go’)   O Love that will not let me go,  I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give You back the life I owe,  That In Your ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.   O Light that leads me all the way,  I yield my failing torch to Thee; My heart restores its borrowed ray,  That in Your sunshine’s blaze its day May brighter, fairer be.   O Joy that meets me in my pain,  I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be.   O Cross that raises up my head,  I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory—dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that will endless be.

  Burning Numbers 11:1 & 3 And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes, and when the LORD heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. … So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD burned among them.   A complaining spirit is a consuming fire. It won’t cry out with the sons of Korah, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God!” It can’t face ostracism from church members like Paul and reply, “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” It can’t weep like Joseph over the very brothers who caused his abuse and say, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good!” Because only the  Taberah  of thanksgiving is a germinative fire. Only gratitude can diffuse the seeds and advance the forest. The  Taberah  of ...

  High Notes and Low Notes Numbers 10:35-36 And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.” And when it rested, he said, “Return, O LORD, to the ten thousand thousands of Israel.”   The topsy-turvy nature of cosmic existence in a fallen world, the paradoxical balance of forces that collide yet coalesce, could be described as two threads that are inextricably bound together while trying to unwind the other. And God has effectively placed our lives right between the fibers of the conflict.    Wise men throughout the ages, when bumping up against these conflicting cords, have tried with finite reason to find ways to describe the struggle. They’ve called it things like the circle of life, or karma, or yin and yang, or the wheel of fortune, or chance and fate, or matter and consciousness, but these either fall too short or reach too far. Only the incarnation of God takes us to the he...

  Silver Chords Numbers 10:2, 9-10 a “Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp. … And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets. … On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings.”   God has placed within our satchel of spiritual armaments two silver trumpets, as it were, one for a benediction and one for a convocation, one for the morning and one for the evening, one for our conflicts and one for our peacetimes, one for our anguish and one for our gladness, one for our petitions and one for our thanksgiving—a prayer for all seasons.   I’m ashamed to think how frivolous I can be in my praying from day to day. How powerless and listless the very ...

  The Waiting Room Numbers 9:22 a Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out.    A dark cloud of providence has been brooding over my home this week, not moving onward, not dissipating, and not letting much sunlight pass through, because yesterday marked the due date of our precious Shiloh who the LORD chose to call home at nine weeks.   It seems like just last week my wife and I were in the doctor’s office eagerly waiting to hear Shiloh’s little heartbeat for the first time, only to have that unspeakable silence meet us on the other end of the screen. Two weeks later, we arrived back for the second sonogram reading and our hearts leapt for joy at the undeniable rhythm of life pulsating through the once-mute screen, our revived hope pulsating with it. The new doctor, sharing our joy, told us to forget all the previous doctor’s warnings an...

  The One and the Many Numbers 9:14 “And if a stranger sojourns among you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its rule, so shall he do. You shall have one statute, both for the sojourner and for the native.”   Moses writes in Deuteronomy 6:4,  “Here, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one,”  which serves as the conceptual bedrock upon which the practicable truth of Numbers 9:14 rests. The statement that God is ‘one’ describes the perfection of unity within the Godhead. It’s a declaration that there is no conflict or disharmony in the divine Being. Yet, it’s also a universal statement of ownership, because if there’s only one omnipresent Power that holds every molecule together from the cavernous rocky crags of Mars to the grassy hills of Bethlehem, then every human being is subject to His Word, whether we’ve heard it or not, whether we like it or not, and whether we believe it or not.    To...

  Sabbath Psalm (A revision of John W. Peterson’s hymn ‘A Student’s Prayer’)   God, the giver and sustainer  of our human intellect, Guide our search for truth and knowledge— all our thoughts and ways direct.   Help us yearn for deeper wisdom— take us far in that pursuit;  Saturate our minds with Scripture:  Truth revealed and absolute.   O how vast Your store of wonders!  Deeper than uncharted seas; Bidding us to bold adventure  if we’d turn from sloth and ease.   But we need Your hand to guide us  in the marvels we pursue, And the presence of Your Spirit  to illumine all we do.   May the things we learn, so meager,  never lift our hearts in pride, Lest in foolish self-reliance  we would wander from Your side.   Let them only draw us closer,  Lord, to You that we may see— Holy Spirit through the letters;  meaning of the mysteries!

  Transitions Numbers 8:23-26a And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service.”   Ask the retired hall of fame quarterback whether he’d rather be on the field sweating out a last-minute victory or sitting in an air-conditioned television studio, and he’ll tell you that the day he hung up his cleats for good was one of the toughest days of his life. Ask the life-long third grade teacher if she breathed a sigh of relief when clearing out her desk for the last time, and she’ll relay the moment through tears as if reminiscing the loss of a friend. Ex-athletes will always wish they could relive the thrill of their greatest achievements, but they can find new del...

  The Gold Standard  Numbers 8:2 & 4 “Speak to Aaron and say to him, When you set up the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lampstand.” … And this was the workmanship of the lampstand, hammered work of gold. … According to the pattern that the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.   Scientific innovation in the Western world has historically been based on the notion that God orchestrated patterns into the universe, unifying principles as many thinkers called them, that hold all things together. Mathematical patterns like the Fibonacci sequence or natural patterns like the hydraulic cycle or ethical patterns like the golden rule are a few examples. Notably, four hundred years before Christ’s coming, Socrates changed the paradigm in philosophical inquiry from theoretical concepts to practicable principles, believing that God had inscribed in our souls a pattern of virtue, and that the genuine seeker of wisdom is devoted to living in accord...

  Between the Angels Numbers 7:89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.   God hasn’t commissioned Moses to live a life of solitary advancement. That is, Moses won’t be the founder of an ascetic movement living in the caves of the Canaanite ridges. His mission is far bigger than that. Effectively—and I mean this symbolically of course—Moses has only seen the back of God thus far because God is always moving  ahead of him  to Zion, always leading him onward, bidding him to follow further up and further in. And Moses can’t catch up until all his brothers and sisters are with him.   It's no small thing here in this Numbers 7 encounter that God doesn’t speak to Moses through heavenly thundering and lightning, nor through pillars of cloud and fire, but through the precious instruments that...

  An Acceptable Approach Numbers 7:1 a , 2, 4-5 a On the day when Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle and had anointed it and consecrated it … the chiefs of Israel, … approached and brought their offerings before the LORD. … Then the LORD said to Moses, “Accept these from them, that they may be used in the service of the tent of meeting.”   About an hour ago, I packed my writing gear in my truck and drove seventeen minutes down back roads till I reached the hiking trails at a rural Christian retreat center. Then, I hiked through the woods, up and down steep hills for another twenty minutes, till I finally arrived at gentle creek where I prefer to write. Next, I unfolded my lawn chair, swept away the spiders and cobwebs that had bombarded me on the way down, and sat to read Numbers 7. Ten minutes went by, then twenty, then maybe thirty, and I just sat rolling the words around in my mind like gemstones in a tumbler, praying for the LORD to smooth and soften and illumine...

  Waxing Lyrical Numbers 6:22-26 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”   Micah’s kindergarten teacher at a hybrid homeschool/classical school a few years ago opened class each morning by singing a benediction of Numbers 6:23-26, and my family has been singing the little melody at our home ever since. I smile on those moments when I’m writing upstairs, sequestered in my room, and the sound that slips under my doorway to interrupt my train of thought isn’t the sound of arguing or screaming or something breaking but the sweet melody of this benediction. And the truth is, even on days when I don’t feel like singing the lines myself, my life is still immersed in them.    The LORD has spoken many things to Moses throu...

  Sabbath Psalm (Revision of John W. Peterson’s hymn, ‘Just One Step at a Time’)   The future veiled before us lies,  The path is hidden from our eyes;  Still we press on to reach the prize— Just one step at a time.   The road He treads is narrow still, It wounds our flesh and bends our will; Through rocky crags up Calv’ry’s hill— Just one step at a time.   The veil is torn and death is dead! Feel Heaven reaching through the threads!  Get up, O soul! Press on ahead! Just one step at a time. 

  Locks of Love Numbers 6:5 “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the LORD, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long.”   The Book of Numbers might be generations away from Christ’s Beatitudes and Paul’s Epistles and John’s Apocalypse, but the telos of the Christian story is made abundantly clear in these primitive stages. Here, we see full well that the life of faith is a life of focused action. It isn’t enough to hear the Word; we’re called to  do  the Word. And if we aren’t consciously  fleshing it out  in consecration to the very God in Whose image we’ve been born, we’re falling short of our created mission.    To that end, Numbers 6:5 sets the stage for that cautionary tale of Samson we read later in Judges 16. We learn in Judges 14 that Samson is a special child, a Nazirite from birth, dedicated by his mother for servic...

  A Nazirite New Year Numbers 6:1-4 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. … All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.”   A Nazirite vow is a special vow of consecration, a way for pilgrims already seeking the face of the Almighty to draw a little nearer, to move further up and further in as Lewis poignantly wrote it in  The Chronicles of Narnia . But it’s always difficult, always against the grain of our ambitions, and always a battle between the will and the appetites.    Imagine if God had prescribed the opposite here though. What if he’d inverted it, that is? Think of how many devoted, life-long Nazarites you’d see joining this pilgrimage if God had said something like, “Pig out ...

  Love is Jealous, Love is Kind Numbers 5:29-31 “This is the law in case of jealousy, when a wife, though under her husband’s authority, goes astray and defiles herself, or when the spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife. Then he shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall carry out for her all this law. The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity.”   We can’t even begin to formulate a coherent argument for why a perfect God would accept a spirit of jealousy in a husband as a good thing until we ponder what God explicitly meant in Exodus 20, at the very outset of the Ten Commandments, when He said,  “I the LORD your God am a jealous God.”    Friend, if we walk away from Numbers 5 today without a deep delight in that whisper from Heaven over our betrothed heart, “I am jealous for  you ,” if we misunderstand that the context for jealousy is sacred matrimony, which serves time and time aga...

  Get Your Hard Hat Ready  Numbers 5:5-7 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the LORD, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it and giving it to him to whom he did the wrong.”   We encountered this law already when reflecting on Leviticus 6, but what strikes me here on second reading is the convicting principle that repentance and restitution are synonymous. Just as faith without works is dead according to the apostle James, so too confession without reparation is dead.    Have you ever heard a pastor distinguish confession from repentance by saying something like, “Confession is saying ‘sorry,’ but repentance is turning from sin and going the opposite way?” That is, any drunkard can realize his sin before God and cry out in convicti...

  Blue Collar Cloth Numbers 4:29 & 31-32  “As for the sons of Merari, … this is what they are charged to carry, as the whole of their service of the tent of meeting: the frames of the tabernacle, with its bars, pillars, and bases, and the pillars around the court with their bases, pegs, and cords, with all their equipment and all their accessories.”   While the Kohathites are distinguished by their blue cloth, their cousins, the Merarites, are distinguished by their blue collars, but both are equally significant in this priestly brotherhood. One handles the most holy instruments of theophany, facing the painstaking labor of safely packaging and transporting the more delicate sacramental items, while the other does the heavy lifting. But just think: if every Levite only pined to perform the most sacred arts, if every hand only lit the candles and polished the tables and oiled the instruments, if no one devoted himself to the more utilitarian task of setting the poles a...

  Sabbath Psalm (Revision of Fanny Crosby’s hymn ‘All the Way My Savior Leads Me’)   All the way my Savior leads me— what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercies  when through life He’s been my guide? Sweetest peace and richest comfort,  here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know, whate’er befalls me,  Christ is my Immanuel!   All the way my Savior leads me— cheers each winding path I tread; Gives me grace for each new trial— feeds my soul with living bread. When my feet are bruised and weary,  when my lips are parched with thirst; From the rocks that stand before me  fountains from His heart outburst!   All the way my Savior leads me— O the riches of His love! Peace, He whispers through each conflict— gives me wings to rise above. When my soul is led by angels  through death’s night to heaven’s day, This will be my song forever:  Jesus led me all the way!

  Beyond the Blue Numbers 4:4, 7, 9, 11 “This is the service of the sons of Kohath in the tent of meeting: the most holy things. … And over the table of the bread of the Presence they shall spread a cloth of blue. … And they shall take a cloth of blue and cover the lampstand for the light. … And over the golden altar they shall spread a cloth of blue.”   It’s late afternoon here in central North Carolina and there isn’t a single cloud in the sky on this pristine day. I recall a comment my son once made on a day just like this one: “Daddy, imagine if God made the sky green instead of blue?!” We imagined it together and quickly realized how bland a day like this would look if the grass and trees and shrubs and sky and waterways were all the same color. I don’t know the scientific explanation for why I’m enthralled by the blue topaz ring on my wife’s finger or by the teal Caribbean Ocean or by our favorite swimming hole in the NC mountains with its bluish boulders, but I know for...

  A Most Sacred Order Numbers 3:6-7 “Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. They shall keep guard over him and over the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they minister at the tabernacle.”   Civics, Sociology, Political Science, and other related subjects boil down to an invisible order inscribed in our souls that we could label as ‘God, family, and country.’   If we get that sacred order wrong in our thinking and living, if we put our government’s welfare before our family wellbeing that is, or if we put our loyalty to family before our duty to God, then our society will err. A Christian who believes that seeking first political and economic stability is more expedient than seeking first Christ’s Kingdom, or a Christian who thinks that family is most important and sacrifices church ministry for ballgames and karate tournaments, will suffer disorder. Conversely, people who get the sacred order corr...

  Awaiting the Dawn Number 2:3 “Those to camp on the east side toward the sunrise shall be of the standard of the camp of Judah by their companies, the chief of the people of Judah being Nahshon the son of Amminadab, his company as listed being 74,600.”   Ponder the literal and allegorical depth of significance in this simple statement: to get to the sunrise, you’ve got to go through Judah.    “I am the light of the world,” said our Lord in John 8:12.  “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”  Later, in Revelation 22:16, our Lord speaks again,  “I, Jesus … am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”  Peter borrows that metaphor in 2 Peter 1:19-20 while speaking of divine prophecy being fulfilled in Christ:  “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star r...

  Tribal Standards Numbers 2:1-2 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “The people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers’ houses. They shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side.”   Get a sense of the enormity of this spectacle, friend. Numbers 1 calculated just the fighting men, ages twenty and up, and here’s the tally: 46,500 from Reuben, 59,300 from Simeon, 45,650 from Gad, 74,600 from Judah, 54,400 from Issachar, 57,400 from Zebulun, 40,500 from Joseph, 32,200 from Manasseh, 35,400 from Benjamin, 41,500 from Asher, and 53,400 from Naphtali, for a total of 603,550 men! That’s not including the women, children, Levites, and I assume the non-Jewish sojourners travelling as well. Which means that each tribe in this commonwealth is a city it its own right, with its own flag, its own demographic, its own culture and heritage, its own dialect, and its own norms. Each has its own patriarchal story to tell, each its own genes...

Count Me In Numbers 1:1-3 The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, … saying, “Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses … every male, head by head. From twenty years old and upward, all in Israel who are able to go to war, you and Aaron shall list them, company by company.”    January is a perfect time to take stock of the past year, to do a medical exam as it were, checking our spiritual vitals, taking inventory of failures and successes, examining where we’ve progressed and where we’ve stalled, which means that this emergence into a new chapter of our Pentateuch pilgrimage is a timely venture. Because, surprising as it first sounds, the book of Numbers is really a book of resolutions.    For this Mosaic commonwealth, there’s a Promised Land just ahead, a land flowing with milk and honey, a fertile region for planting and harvesting, and they can see a glimmer of it over the horizon...