Fourty
It seems like for a while, I have stopped counting how old I was. I knew I was somewhere in my thirties, but I still felt young. However, I quickly discovered that “young” depended on who I was with.
I recently worked in an office where most of my co-workers were in their twenties. I once joined two of them for lunch break. They were talking about a couple of guys, one was named Usher and the other one was named 50 Cent. “Your friends have very interesting names,” I told them. They tried to hold back their laughter when they realized I didn’t know who these men were. They were gracious enough to give me a crash course on performance artists that their generation listens to. Intrigued, I looked at my mp3 player and these were the artists that I found: Guns N Roses, David Foster, and Simon and Garfunkel. I drove home that day not feeling so young. I then started counting my age again and realized I will be forty next year.
Forty was also a special number for the Israelites as was chronicled in the Book of Numbers. At Sinai, God gave them the ten commandments and the tabernacle. They were getting ready to head to the promised land. However, a journey that should just have taken a few weeks took them almost 40 years to complete. During those 40 years, the Israelites were tested and tempted but they did not perform admirably.
I am sure that there are moments in your life that you feel like you are also in the desert, being tested. My wife and I had a few of those in our lives. One lasted for seven years — that’s how long it took for us to have our first child. Honestly, the first few years were fun! We enjoyed this time getting to know each other. We travelled a lot and did so many things together. However, it did become more difficult after a while. Our hearts longed for a child and I must admit that my faith wavered a few times.
Long after Moses and his group of Israelites were gone, there was another man that was also tempted in the desert — Jesus. It has been 40 days since Jesus has eaten. He should have been in a weakened state. However, Jesus resisted each of Satan’s temptation and left the desert victorious.
All of us will be tested. I pray that when we face such a desert in our lives, we won’t follow what the Israelites did and focus on the size of our obstacles. Rather, I hope we will imitate what Jesus did and focus on the strength of our father.
