Bring It To Me

NUMBERS 5

I have read Numbers 5 before.

More than once.

But this time I got stuck on a phrase I had somehow overlooked.

A spirit of jealousy.

Not jealousy.

A spirit of jealousy.

When I read the word spirit, my mind immediately went where it has been trained to go.

Cast it out.

Take authority over it.

Deal with it spiritually.

But that isn’t what happened in this passage.

I kept reading. I found:

A spirit of jealousy.

An offering of jealousy.

The law of jealousy.

Bitter water.

I thought about how many times I had read this chapter without really seeing what was there.

What caught my attention was not the jealousy itself.

It was God’s response to it.

The passage says:

“If the spirit of jealousy come upon him…”

Come upon him.

Something came upon him.

I dug deeper because I noticed God’s Word did not say cast it out.

That made me slow down.

Instead of immediately telling the husband what the jealousy was, God showed him what to do with it.

He was to bring the matter before God.

The husband was not told to trust the jealousy.

He was not told to ignore it.

He was not told to act on it.

He was not told to become the judge.

He was told to bring it before God.

That made me think.

Because the jealousy may have revealed something was wrong.

Or it may have revealed something in the husband.

Or perhaps both.

The point is that neither the jealousy nor the husband became the final authority.

God did.

Even the bitter water is interesting.

There was an examination.

There was a revealing.

There was an uncovering of truth.

The husband did not determine the outcome.

The wife did not determine the outcome.

The jealousy did not determine the outcome.

God did.

How often do we do the opposite?

Something comes upon us and we immediately decide what it means and what should be done about it.

Fear comes upon us.

Anger comes upon us.

Offense comes upon us.

Discouragement comes upon us.

Heaviness comes upon us.

Suspicion comes upon us.

And before we know it, we have become the interpreter.

The investigator.

The judge.

We decide what happened.

We decide why it happened.

We decide who is wrong.

Yet Numbers 5 reveals a different pattern.

Bring it to Me.

Not every fear is truth.

Not every offense is deception.

Not every anger is righteousness.

Not every suspicion is wrong.

Not every suspicion is right.

Something has come upon you.

Bring it before God.

And this is why we need the Holy Spirit.

Jesus called Him the Spirit of Truth.

When something comes upon us, we do not have to immediately react to it, agree with it, or be led by it.

Bring it before God.

Seek wisdom.

Seek understanding.

Ask for discernment.

Then we walk in the authority God has given us.

God has given us self-control.

God has given us authority.

But He alone is the revealer of truth.

Perhaps that is the freedom I see in this passage.

Not that we have no role.

We do.

Our responsibility is to submit what has come upon us to God, seek His wisdom, and obey what He reveals.

His responsibility is to uncover the truth.

We don’t have to carry His role.

Simply Bring It To Him.