The other day I was reading in Numbers chapter 2 about how Israel was commanded to set up their camp while they were in the desert. God commanded Israel to set up the tent of meeting, which was the place where the ark resided and were God met with Moses, in the middle of the camp. That seems appropriate. It was the most expensive and most spiritually important thing owned by the nation, so putting it in the middle of the camp would make it as safe as possible.

What does seem a little odd though is the command that “they shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side.” With so many enemies outside the camp to worry about it would seem like a good idea to have a least some tents facing the outside of the camp to watch out for the bad dudes, right?

When I read this the part of my brain that thinks logically and practically yells “that is not very strategic!” And yet, God knew that when any Israelite would step out of their tent each day, the first thing they needed to see was the place that housed His presence so that they would be reminded that He was among them.

Sometimes we are just too practical. And, in that mindset, we place little strategic things above the big spiritual things that we should be concerned with. Sleep, for example, is one of those strategic things that tends to lord over the spiritual. You know how much sleep you need, and you strategically plan to get enough to get you through the day, even if that means skipping out on some time with God. But, in reality, we all know that when we sacrifice sleep to spend time in the Word that God honors that and helps us through the day.

Another example is how we tend to try to fix all of our problems on our own. That’s practical right? You know you have a problem, and so you go to work trying to figure out how to make it better. Everyone does it. But, maybe we should think of the spiritual first and spend some time praying about it. Maybe we should allow God to have His go at fixing the problem before we take our shot at it.

This thought seems really obvious, but it is counter-intuitive to our nature. So rather than dismissing it and thinking that you already put the spiritual before the practical, let me encourage you to pray through this and ask God to show you where you are getting this backward. I know that I am in many areas of my life, my guess is that I’m not the only one that is messed up.

Any thoughts?