Bibledoorajar: Up the Wazoo!

     The book of Numbers records that after the mixed multitude grew greedy and complained that they needed an easier life,  the people of Israel renewed their weeping and said if only they had meat to eat! Then they recalled that the fish they used to eat in Egypt had cost them nothing (uh, bondage, duh?) and now they had nothing to look at but Manna (a miracle!).
      Both God and Moses heard the weeping and both were displeased in their own way. Moses wondered why God was treating him so badly in that he had given him a people to lead that did not want to be led. He asked God if he had lost favor since he had had nothing to do with their conception, infant hood, or their becoming the inheritance of their ancestors. Where in the world would he get meat for those people whose requests for him to provide it went on and on and on? He then requested mercy from God that he would not have to go on carrying this burden alone. God provided a plan to help relieve His servant, Moses, by allowing him to select elders to help him. And as for the people, they would have meat. Up the wazoo!!!! Moses told the people that they would not eat meat one day but a whole month! That is, if they would consecrate themselves anew to their God. They were, after all, still His people.

Consecration:  to make holy or to dedicate to a higher sacred purpose.

God knew that His people could not continue on to the Promised Land with steadfastness if they had not consecrated themselves anew to His higher way of life and purpose. Where would they get the power to do so? Therein is a message for those of us who call ourselves His people today. If all we have to look at day after day is the Bible (our Manna- miracle) without consecration, our steadfastness runs the peril of spiraling down to complaints and desires to give up. Or worse yet, take on greedy thoughts which the apostle Paul classifies as a form of idolatry. If that happens we run the risk of missing this:

 "There are depths of love that I yet may know

  Ere Thee face to face I see;

There are heights of joy that I yet may reach

  Ere I rest in peace with Thee."
Getting Personal with Fanny Crosby, 1874