This is one of my favorite chapters. I know, weird. But try this little exercise (from Beth Moore's A Woman's Heart/God's Dwelling Place): Take out a piece of paper and pencil. In the middle of the page, draw a small rectangle representing the tent of meeting oriented on your page so that the width is the longer side (wider than it is long). The short end on the right side will represent East. Draw a small box for each 10,000 men represented in each tribe - so on the East side, you will have boxes representing 186,400, on the South side, 151,450, and so on. Draw a circle around your rectangle to represent the Levites who encamped around the tent of meeting to ensure that no one who was not authorized entered in. Now draw a line vertically through the rectangle with 2/3 of the rectangle on the right and 1/3 on the left. This indicates the curtain separating the Holy of Holies. Draw a star in the smaller section of the rectangle indicating the location of the ark of the covenant, the mercy seat.
Now picture this formation making camp in the wilderness. Each time they set out, they were to remain in formation. Each time they encamped they were to remain in formation.
Now picture this formation making camp in the wilderness. Each time they set out, they were to remain in formation. Each time they encamped they were to remain in formation.
Your picture should look something like this. The reason I love this chapter is because it is such a great illustration of how God is attentive to every detail. Why did it matter who marched out in what order? Why would God care how the people were arranged? Because, as they marched through the desert, they were proclaiming the gospel, even when they didn't realize it. They couldn't see the shape their formation took from the ground level.
How often is our obedience proclaiming the gospel, even when we don't understand or see how it could? We don't have to see how it works to know that God has the bird's eye perspective, God sees the entirety of our lives from beginning to end, and sees how this one facet that makes no sense to us, is in precisely the right place.
How often is our obedience proclaiming the gospel, even when we don't understand or see how it could? We don't have to see how it works to know that God has the bird's eye perspective, God sees the entirety of our lives from beginning to end, and sees how this one facet that makes no sense to us, is in precisely the right place.
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