Bushels and bricks

This week's verses are Leviticus 25:20-21:

If you say, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?” I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years

In the chapter where these verses are found, God is explaining the need for Sabbath years. Basically every seventh year  Israel was commanded to not plant or harvest, but to live off of their reserves and trust it would last. 

It's a crazy-sounding request in a land where harvests were not always reliable. Sometimes people barely lasted a year, even on the food they'd just harvested! So it's natural that people would object to being asked to go that far out on a limb. If you look at the budget and there's not enough, it's foolish not to say something, right?

But God answers Israel's reasonable objections with a promise to provide everything they need in their obedience. Compare that to how Pharaoh met Israel's objections when they came to him in Exodus 5:15-19:

Then the foremen of the sons of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants? There is no straw given to your servants, yet they keep saying to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are being beaten; but it is the fault of your own people.” But he said, “You are lazy, very lazy; therefore you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ So go now and work; for you will be given no straw, yet you must deliver the quota of bricks.” The foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in trouble because they were told, “You must not reduce your daily amount of bricks.” 

God is not like Pharaoh. He doesn't take from us. He provides.

God is interested in our participation, our obedience to his commands. He is partnering with us. He trusts us with small details of his plan for the universe, and in return he wants our actions to show that we also trust him.

 

He is like a rich man who invites us to dinner and hands us money to go pick up some bread on the way there. Could you call that an outrageous burden if he's already providing everything else, and even pays for you to do the tiny part you were asked to do? God is the complete opposite of the tyrant Pharaoh!

We should understand this principle when God asks something of us that seems impossible. He is not a cruel task master. Quite the opposite! He is willing to provide us with everything we lack so we can benefit in eternity. 

 

So, instead of asking "How will we eat if we can't provide it ourselves," trust that God has already made a way. He has a path, just for you. You follow it by trusting him and doing what he asks. His promise to Israel is a promise to us as we step out in faith and follow him. His blessing will cover all of our needs and more.