[238 words]
Some people, if you let them, will play video games to the point of exhaustion. Others practice some addiction or compulsion to their great injury .
“And the people stayed up all that day, all that night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail. The one who gathered the least gathered ten homers, and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp” (Numbers 11:32 NET).
In the desert, the people of Israel were so excited about the meat that God gave them that they stayed up 36 hours without sleeping while they gathered quail. And many of them died for their dissatisfaction with God’s provisions and because of their craving.
But today’s focus is to ask ourselves if our desire to know and do the will of God is this strong? Are we as dedicated to doing good, as were these people to satisfy their craving for meat? Do we seek to please God to the point of staying up without sleep in order to obey him? Is our joy over celestial truths so great that pure adrenaline from it drives us?
We’re not saying that, at some point in life, it’s necessary to stay awake for 36 hours straight. We are saying that our excitement over the Lord Jesus Christ ought to exceed in every way any enthusiasm for things of this life.
Almighty God, may the knowledge of redemption in the Chosen One possess us entirely.
J. Randal Matheny
Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil