drive them out

Today we read from Numbers 33:40-35:34 in the One Year Bible. In this selection, we find the troubling commandment from God to drive out the people living in the promised land, and to kill them all.

The same mentality was present when colonists came to America and drove out the people who lived here, and for similar reasons... because they believed God was giving them this land, and the people who lived here, who did not serve God in the way that the colonists did, had to go.

In the Old Testament account, we have to accept that this is what God ordered, since it is very forthright in the account. We don't know the details of how God might have tried to reach the peoples who lived in the land before the Hebrews drove them out. But we do know that we can trust His mercy, love, and grace to take care of all of His children, and not just the ones who happen to be the protagonists of the story we're reading.

In our lives today, though, we should strive to love those who don't know Him. Help them to find Him, but even if they don't, to be kind to them and love them anyway. It's doubtful that God will give us a command to drive out "heathens" today and take their land by force. However, it IS interesting that those of us who believe in God believe that children are a gift from Him, and so we continue to follow our first command in the whole Bible: be fruitful and multiply. Those who don't believe in God and His commands generally see the world as overpopulated and they think we should stop having children altogether. Which means that, even being loving and kind to them, we will eventually replace them.

God thanks for giving us Your love and grace so we can in turn give them to people who need it.