When you have an important choice to make, what do you do? Some people give in to their impulses, and often live to regret rash decisions. Others try to think things through, analyzing a situation from every angle. Some are guided by the past, drawing on their personal experience or relying on the traditions that have been handed down to them.

None of these sources of truth would have led the people of God to do what they did in today’s passage. Remember, Moses had promised them that the Lord would lead them out of slavery in Egypt into a rich and fertile land, (Exodus 3:8), the land where their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived (Exodus 6:8). And Moses had brought them out of Egypt, all the way to Mt. Sinai, a journey which took them about three months (Exodus 19:1).

But they didn’t leave Mt. Sinai for almost a year (Numbers 10:11). For almost a year, they waited while Moses got lots of detailed instructions from God, and while skilled craftsmen made the Tabernacle of God, and while the priests (Leviticus 8) and the Levites (Numbers 8) were consecrated for their duties. It was only then that they set out for the Promised Land.

But neither passion nor reason, experience nor tradition could explain such a long wait. Why couldn’t they have gone ahead into the Promised Land before making all these purely religious preparations? Why couldn’t they have performed some of these rituals along the way? Didn’t it make more sense to take care of the practical stuff first?

Maybe so. And maybe it makes sense to us to put God and His priorities on the back burner of our lives at times. But at least in this passage, the people allowed God to guide their steps and to manage their schedule. They stayed in their camp as long as the pillar of cloud and fire rested over the Tabernacle of God. And they set out whenever it moved on. And they went wherever it led them, even though they had no idea where they were going or how long it would take them to get there.

So, how about us? Will we keep on relying on our own feelings, on what makes sense to us? Or will we trust in the Lord, obeying His Word and walking in His ways, whatever may come our way today?

Numbers 9:15-23 (NASB)

15 Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning.
16 So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night.
17 And whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp.
18 At the command of the LORD the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the LORD they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped.
19 Even when the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, the sons of Israel would keep the LORD’s charge and not set out.
20 If sometimes the cloud remained a few days over the tabernacle, according to the command of the LORD they remained camped. Then according to the command of the LORD they set out.
21 If sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning, when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move out; or if it remained in the daytime and at night, whenever the cloud was lifted, they would set out.
22 Whether it was two days or a month or a year that the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, staying above it, the sons of Israel remained camped and did not set out; but when it was lifted, they did set out.
23 At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out; they kept the LORD’s charge, according to the command of the LORD through Moses.