March 25, 2011 – Numbers 1:28 - 1:54

The Levites always interested me.  I wonder what they thought of this whole arrangement.  You don’t get any land because you are to serve God.  Doesn’t matter what you want, if you are born into the Levite tribe, you serve God.  Would they have resented that fact or cherished it.  They earned it by being faithful during the trial while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, but did they realize they were getting any of the promise land out of it. 

In thinking about that, I relate it in a way to how we are called to live our lives now, as faithful Christians.  I love gadgets and electronics, but I don’t have a lot of them, or at least not he really great things.  I have a computer that works and I recently got a generic MP3 player because we cannot afford and IPod.  I took someone’s Receiver because I wanted to play music around the house and all the speakers I have collected for free or cheap throughout the years.  No cable, no texting, no apps on my phone.  There are just not a lot of perks I have when it comes to the stuff.  That is because we don’t have a lot of money to blow on those things.  Michelle doesn’t work and she stays at home, I am not a high price attorney because I want a job that allows me to be at home.  These are things we feel are important to the way we live and so we do without things.  All of the material junk that I would spend money on if I wanted it would only cause me to be corrupted anyway, or I least that is the likely scenario, so it is good that I don’t have those things.  It helps me to be a better father and husband and Christian.  We are called to not live a material life because our focus is suppose to be on God.  That is what God did for the Levites.  He took away their worry about land in order for them to focus on God.  I think at least some of them had to resent it at least a little because I know I find myself jealous of people that have those things that I cannot.  But when I really think about it, I know it is for my betterment. 

This also brings about the topic of priest not being able to be married.  It makes sense to me that their focus needs to be on the Church just as the Levites focus needs to be on God.  When God really wants you to focus on Him, He gives you the opportunity to do so, by taking away distractions.  Not having priest marry just seems very logical to me if you want leaders in the Church whose entire focus is on God and the Church.  That makes sense.