Day 38 - 9-11 DECISION DETOURS DESTINY...

Day 38 - Starts at Sundown (7:36 pm) on Wednesday September 11

*** First Time Visitors, Please go to the First Time Visitors Tab ***

If you want to share what we are doing with a friend please direct them using the URL for that page.
                                     ============================
Today many Americans remembered those who perished when the two hijacked jumbo jets flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11,  2001.  

Where were you when you first heard the news of this tragedy? 

I was heading out the door of my house to go to work and I took a side trip into my garage to grab something. The radio was playing in the garage and during the brief 30 seconds I was standing there, 
I heard the announcer say we should be praying for victims in the Plane and the World trade Center,  because a jumbo jet had just flown into one of the twin towers, and that the building was on fire. Instead of getting in my car and hitting the road, I went back into the house. Connected the rabbit ears to our monitor in order to connect to the local television station.  I was able to tune in the news just before seeing the second plane struck the second tower. Within two hours both buildings had collapsed inward and a massive pile of ruble, replaced the tallest buildings in North America. 

I was in shock as I am sure you were. I was having a hard time, processing all the news, answering the questions running through my mind. 
How did this happen? 
Where was our national defense? 
Did our leaders know this was coming?

As the story unfolded throughout that day and the days to come, we were all saddened by the loss of life and the violent plans of men.  We all felt that some significant and lasting change had come to our world. 

There was no going back to the way things used to be. 

                                                             -------------------------

Perhaps shock, attempts to process what just happened and deep sadness was the feeling on the ground, when God judged Israel and passed a death sentence on every male over the age of 20.  None of them would be coming back out, they would all die in the wilderness. 
Only two individual men out of an entire generation would live, the two men who counted God to be faithful, Joshua and Caleb would not die. They would be the only ones from their generation to enter in to the promised land.  

28 Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: 29 The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.  

30 Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. 

31 But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. 32 But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. 

33 And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. 34 According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection. 35 I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.’”36 Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land, 37 those very men who brought the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord. 38 But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of the men who went to spy out the land.       Numbers 14

 Moses and Aaron interceded for all of the congregation and God heard them. 

24 But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it. 25 Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valley; tomorrow turn and move out into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.”

 God commanded them to return to the wilderness, by the same way as they came into the wilderness when they left Egypt, by way of the Red Sea. 

39 Then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. 40 And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised, for we have sinned!”41 And Moses said, “Now why do you transgress the command of the Lord? For this will not succeed. 42 Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.”44 But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed from the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah.

After the ten spies brought back an evil report and discouraged the people of God from going in. 

1. The men of Israel thought they could turn back the clock by changing their minds and go in after the appointed time had passed. 
2. Moses warned them that God was no longer with them, that the appointed time had passed, God had made the call. 
3. They went up to war anyway and the very things they proclaimed about the land came to pass as they were defeated by the inhabitants of the land. 

And so we approach the 40th day of our chance to spy out the promises concerning the land God wants to make a part of our inheritance. How shall we say?

In the spring of 1993 I was beginning to look for a house in Mankato, it would be May of 1993 before I was led to the house God had planned for me. As I was praying about where I should be looking, God gave me a Scripture. it was a Quote from Caleb one of the spies in Israel after they came back to take the land he said,

"Give me the hill country." as my inheritance.  Scripture goes on to describe the hill country as some of the hardest territory to take and some of the most entrenched inhabitants.  God said, Caleb had a different spirit. I hope we have a different spirit as well, a spirit that says give me the hill country.