Post 197

Why is it that it took the Israelites 40 years to travel a journey that could have taken just a few days?

Well it goes back to the 12 Israelite spies. They were supposed to check out the land of Canaan and tell Moses what it was like. God had already promised to give the Israelites the land, but 10 of these spies didn't believe God's promise. They spied out Canaan for 40 days then brought back their report to Moses and the people. They reported that the land was very good, but then they said "Nevertheless..." and started spewing off words of doubt. They said they wouldn't be able to take the land. The Bible calls it an "evil report." But there were 2 spies who believed God's promise, Joshua and Caleb. They said "We are well able to overcome it," and "If the LORD delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us."

The Israelites believed the evil report. They did not trust in God. Instead the people kept bringing up more and more words of doubt, and murmured against God and Moses. God was very disappointed in His people, and said He would destroy them all right then. Moses fell on his face, then beseeched God for mercy and forgiveness. God heard Moses's plea and decided to have some mercy. Instead of destroying all the people, He made them wait to enter His promised land, one year for each day they had spied. And by the end of that 40 years, the only ones of that generation still alive were Joshua and Caleb.

Joshua and Caleb were different than other people. They had strong faith. They believed God was in control. They believed His word instead of their eyes. God said that Caleb had another spirit with him, and that he followed the Lord fully. As for Joshua, God appointed him to be Moses's successor, the next leader of the Israelites. We need to have faith like these two men, and we need to be sure that our words and actions are not discouraging others or causing them to stumble.

You can read the whole story in Numbers 13 and 14.

Pushing the kids on Sunday after Church

Jemima lost 2 teeth so she makes such a perfect bunny now.

Anna Boomstra and her father were part of this play. It was about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Here's Anna at the keyboard.

My brother Levi Bendixen with Lemuel Heyworth.

Levi got us all together to go witnessing the other week. We went to a couple of malls and told people about Jesus. About 3 people made decisions for Jesus. It was fun. I got to present the gospel in song.

Prayer before witnessing

Ice cream...

Leaf raking party

Poppa Biddinger and I replaced this door.

Phyllissa's birthday party.

Levi took all the framework off of this CD player, and it still worked!

This is Christopher and us. He has been such a blessing to us the last few months. I'm thankful that the Lord brought us into each other's lives. He has a Bible study with us regularly.

This was a while back, but here are Amanda and two of her sisters at a girls tea party.

Here they are with the Heyworths.

Here I am

I forgot to post this in the post about Puerto Rico (Post 195). This is a Spanish speaking Parrot they had in the hotel entry at the Caribe Hilton.

This, too, was a couple months ago as you can see...