Forty Years of Funerals

Even though all humans have at least one thing in common (death), I don’t know of anyone who says they enjoy funerals—I know for sure that I don’t. At funerals we mourn the loss of friends, family, or acquaintances, but at the same time funerals often inspire reflection on our own lives, which is seldom pretty or pleasant.  I recently read a Christian novel that made me really think about what it would have been like to live through the Exodus and wilderness experience I have often read about in the Bible. Because ten of the twelve spies brought back negative reports instead of trusting God, wasted years in the wilderness ensued during which the entire generation of warriors who refused to trust God died:

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise (Numbers 14:33-34, KJV).

Imagine the pain of forty years of funerals—an entire generation lost because of unbelief and grumbling and complaining and idol worship. I cannot imagine the trepidation of the younger generation who watched their parents and grandparents perish one by one until they were no more—knowing they could not inherit the promise while their parents lived. Alternately, I cannot imagine the heartache of the older generation who should have led their children into the Promised Land, but instead became inescapable object lessons for them.  Forty years of funerals is more than I can comprehend yet all that I want to avoid. Its inclusion in the Bible is inspiration for walking in the path God sets before me with a faith and gratitude I often lack.  When I stand before God I don't want to look back at a life lived in the wilderness and littered with carcasses.