There are some valuable lessons that can be learnt from this book, however before we look at some of these lessons, have you ever wondered why the Israelites under Joshua never complained and were most of the time obedient and followed God. On the other hand the Israelites that came out of Egypt and for those who were not killed spent 40 years in the wilderness and died there. The only two who survived were Joshua and Caleb.
I believe the reason the Israelites that came out of Egypt were stiff necked, rebellious and most of the time grumbled, was because for more than 400 years they were slaves. You can imagine a life of slavery in the days of Pharaoh couldnt have been a picnic. It must have been harsh with extreme living conditions. They must have done everything they could to survive. From stealing food to feed their family to ratting on one of their brethren so that they may receive an extra bag of maize.
The truth of the matter is they had a poor self image, they saw themselves as slaves and even when they left Egypt, that image remained. You may not realise it but most people today have a poor self image. This could be due to many reasons. Some of those, are poverty, abuse and been raised by a single parent.
I believe there are also many, many people in the church who have a poor self image. I have been a Christian for more than 30 years and except for the last five years I struggled with low self esteem. Your response is probably: that is ridiculous! Is it? When you consider your walk with the Lord and you read in the Bible that you are blessed and then you look at your circumstances, you have to acknowledge that there is only a small part of it where you see the blessing of God manifest.
I remember many years ago speaking to a friend of mine and John 10 verse 10 came up, where Jesus says, The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. He asked the question why we are not living abundant lives? I did not know the answer; we do know the Word of God is true, so the problem must either be us or our interpretation of the Word. – For previous columns in this series please see the website www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Post published in: Opinions