by David Schmitt
The LORD said to Moses, . . . “This is how you are to bless the Israelites.”
Numbers 6:22–23
I recently moved. Cleaning out the basement, I came across a box of memories. Artifacts from college. There, among the scattered pictures, was a letter from my father. I recognized his handwriting immediately.
Dad was forwarding some mail and asked me when I’d come home. That forwarded mail is long since gone. So is my father. But not the power of his handwritten words.
His words evoked memories. Dad steadying me on a bike as I rode down the driveway. Dad driving with me to college. Dad writing a letter, wondering when I’d come home. Though Dad is gone, I still have his words and, for a moment, remember the love and protection he offered in my journeys.
The Israelites were on the move. Again. Having been delivered from slavery in Egypt, it seemed that all they did was move. Pitching their tents in some patch of wilderness and taking them up again, they wandered for forty years through a desert. Yet, they were not alone.
God had given them his Word. A blessing. This God who could strike down the Egyptians with plagues, who could cover the morning ground with manna and fill the evening sky with quail—this God gave them his Word. With a powerful hand, he wrote blessings across the sands of the desert. He promised to be with them in all of their journeys and finally to bring them home.
God’s blessing covers the highways and driveways of our world today, too. Our God is the Lord of all journeys. God the Father sent his only Son to lead you home. His road took him to hell and back to forgive your sins and to claim you as his own. In Jesus, he promises to watch over you. He rescues you when you wander, sets your feet back on his paths, and leads you home.
In these devotions, we will meditate on the blessing of God, seeing how he leads us step by step, giving us his blessing and promising his protection as we make our way home.
