Today’s passage is Numbers 1:20-54. The number of men 20 years or more are listed for each tribe. Judah has the most. The Levites are not counted because they are put in charge of the care of the tabernacle. They surround it with their tents so God’s wrath will be deflected. The other tribes camp elsewhere. Anyone who tries to get near the tabernacle is to be killed.
Sometimes Feeling Inferior, Sometimes Superior
3(53) The Levites are appointed as caretakers of the tabernacle of the covenant and all its furnishings, solely responsible for disassembling it when the Israelites are to move, setting it up again, and then camping around it.
The other tribes provide fighting men, but the Levites have a different set of responsibilities which, in fulfillment of, guarantees that God’s wrath will not fall on the Israelites.
The other tribes protect their community from the external forces of the world while the Levites protect the community from trespasses against some of the newly established rules of God.
In both cases there would be feelings of superiority and inferiority.
The fighting men would naturally feel superior to the Levites because their lives are on the line against attacking armies.
The Levites would feel superior because they have been selected to care for the physical covenant, symbol of the special relationship between God and the Israelites.
During an attack, however, they would feel inferior to the soldiers, who in turn would feel inferior to the Levites and their special job given to them by God when there was no need for soldiering.
Late in my life, I have appointed to my job as school principal.
I say “appointed” because I didn’t apply for the job and was surprised that it was offered to me.
I was surprised because I had been a teacher for 25 years and, I felt, unskilled in the administration of a school. In a classroom I felt superior in charge of a school I felt inferior to those who had trained for years to do the job I was given.
I felt superior in a classroom because of high evaluations from my students, who seemed to learn things and do well on exams that I neither created nor corrected.
That sense of superiority, however, did not protected me from being dismissed from a school during the time of my first wife’s death and my affaire.
Nor did my sense of superiority protect me from feelings of inferiority when I met truly superior teachers, teachers with skills and abilities I lacked. Instead of learning from them, I tried to avoid them, afraid of others comparing me to them.
What I didn’t see, but others did, was that I was as natural a teacher as I was a swimmer.
I had no need of feeling superior or inferior. I was who and what I was by God’s grace.
I simply needed to focus on my students and get on with the job. But it was so hard to do that simple thing because of my pride.
My pride, either swollen or deflated, got in the way of my teaching and my relationships with other teachers. I could have done so much better, served others so much better, had better relationships if I could only have accepted my circumstances, prayed hard, and did my best.
I came to my job as a principal with a load of inferiority that really helped me become a better principal than I expected.
My sense of inadequacy helped me because it kept me on my knees praying to God for help and for guidance.
When I forgot to pray and to take time to prayerfully consult with others, then I made mistakes because I trusted too much in myself.
My sense of superiority had crept back in. I expelled a boy when I should not have, for instance, and I had to repent and reinstate him.
What I have been learning is that a job is a job and it doesn’t matter what my circumstances because they are what God has allowed and given me.
My role is not to feel superior or inferior at all but to feel the ongoing need of God in my life and the joy of trusting him to inspire and support me in doing what he has given me to do.
It’s my attitude, not my circumstances, that gets in the way of fulfilling my role.
Application: Pray to complete an honest and sincere reference for a teacher without allowing the teacher’s sense of superiority to trigger my own and make the reference different from what God demands.
Lord, let me give thanks for my circumstances on all occasions and trust in you to guide me in the way I need to go for your glory.
