Hey friends! I am here with my buddy, Luna. Luna is our Siberian Husky
and she and I will often get up early in
the morning and go and take a walk.
And it’s the time of year when, when we
get up it’s still dark
to go for a walk. But after our 40-45
minutes of walking, we get back and the
sun has risen and that’s kind of a neat
thing
to take a walk while the sun is rising,
before the day comes rushing at you. And,
um, and as you know days can kind of come rushing at you. There’s enough stuff that
you know about each day, and then there’s a whole lot of surprises that
can really bombard you, and surprise
you, and overwhelm you from day to day.
I um, I bring that up talking about a
sunrise as we’re having an evening
devotion because in the book of Numbers, chapter 3,
there was a group of Levites that got
commanded to set up their camps on the
east side of the tabernacle where the
sun would rise.
And it, and it says that as he told Moses
and Aaron and their families where to
live, he said I want you to live on the
east side where the sun would rise.
And if they were living on the east side
of the tabernacle where the sun would
rise, you know what that meant. They would be the first ones to see
the sunrise each day. Which means they
would probably be the first ones
to wake up that day. They didn’t have
alarm clocks. They woke up by the sun
typically, which meant that their eyes were open before anybody
else’s, and they were better prepared to
face the day
because they had a better idea of what
was coming than anybody else who was in
the camp with them. And I bet that made the rest of the
campers feel safe; that there was
somebody who was
going to know what was coming, at least
better than they did, and
maybe be in a position to do something
about it.
And there’s, um, you know, there’s
something important about the Israelites,
the whole context of the book of Numbers
that we need to keep in mind.
There were about 2 million Israelites as
far as we can tell. And maybe in the world there were up to
maybe 10 million other people in the
world. And do you know what the
Israelites knew about the lives of those
other 10 million people?
Nothing.
There was no worldwide news. There were
no TV cameras, there were no social media feeds that they could follow what was
going on on the opposite side of the
world. They knew nothing about what was
going on in those lives.
They only knew what was going on in
their own lives and that was enough
to really overwhelm them from time to
time. And what’s going on in your life, I
bet,
that’s enough to overwhelm you from time to time.
But then, of course, you get the news from across the country,
in other cities, other families, in other
countries,
in other places in the world where
horrible things are happening.
And it’s not that we’re unconcerned
about those things, we are. They hit our
hearts so powerfully, but it can be really,
really overwhelming.
And God knows that.
And so he chooses
somebody to wake up every day
before you do, no matter what time you
get up. He chooses somebody to stay awake longer than you do every night, no matter
what time you go to bed. And the person he chooses for that is himself.
Himself.
In Psalm 121
it says that God never slumbers, he never
sleeps, he never closes his eyes, he never
takes a nap as he watches over
you.
As he watches over you.
His love for you is constant. His
protection over your life is consistent,
and he will never lead you astray.
And so maybe
as you begin each day and as you end
each day,
instead of listening to all the
different news of all the different
things that are happening out there
maybe just,
open up the Word or, or listen to
something like you’re doing right now
that reminds you
that God’s guidance is always the best
one to lead us through each day.
That God’s voice is always the best one to hear.
It’s okay to shut off those other things
from time to time. It’s okay to turn off the news, and to
not check the social media feed,
and to not check email, and to just rest
in the assurance that your God always
has his eyes on you.
Rest well tonight, my friends.
Your God is
watching you.
