This morning in our Friday morning Prayer and Practices group on Zoom we added a new practice to help us draw nearer to God. The Prayer of Recollection…of re-collecting our scattered self back to wholeness with God…to Shalom (peace, harmony, wholeness). I loved the Scripture reference: Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. Psalm 116:7.

In reading Numbers 10, the people are about to enter into the Promised Land and so The Lord said to Moses, “Make two trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community together and for having the camps set out. v. 1-2. I keep trying to imagine what that must have been like for the people. They were about to travel at God’s direction to the land promised to them as descendants of Abraham, their forefather of absolute faith and trust in God. And they have trumpet blasts that differentiate when to gather, when to prepare to depart as the cloud lifts up and moves.

As I thought about our meeting this morning and this Scripture, I realized it’s all about our journey with God. I have loved God from childhood when I first learned about Jesus and how much He loved me and I knew in all of my six years of life that I wanted to go live with Him in heaven. I was that sure! As an adult and needing to know Him better, I have been returning to the purity of that love but now it is so much deeper because I journey with Him.

After reading Numbers 10, I read The Chosen 40 Days with Jesus, and in Day 18 they discussed the 2nd time Jesus asked the disciples where they could get food in the wilderness to feed the 4,000 gathered there (the 1st time, 5,000 were there). (Matthew 15:32-33). For the 2nd time, the disciples forgot Whom they were talking with and Who was teaching them. From the devotional: This would’ve been an appropriate time to tell the disciples how utterly ridiculous they were. Or how they were going to ruin everything if they didn’t pull it together and start trusting Him with the impossible. Of course Jesus didn’t do that. In lieu of a much deserved rebuke, He asked the disciples one simple question, “How many loaves do you have?” (v. 34). Once again, He calmly invited them to hand over their “not enough” so He could multiply it into more than what they need.…He let them get it wrong then shifted the focus back to Him.

Our lives are a journey of learning, of falling short, of discouragement, of triumph and through it all, He tells us to count it all joy. Why? Because our “not enough” is never something that separates us from God. We can tell ourselves as the psalmist did…Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to me. He will bring our focus back to Him Who is more than enough to lead us and guide us into deeper communion with Him who loves us so much. We can almost hear the trumpet blast! This is our journey with Him. Draw near…take His hand…walk and talk with Him and share your heart and give thanks throughout the day. Your not enough will be filled to the brim with His more than enough love. Count it all joy…this is our journey with our Creator God!