Why are we glad to be “the Hands and Feet of God”? Because God (and His Hands and Feet) won’t wear out, They are not of flesh but motivation and motility. Acting in Mercy, Forgiveness, Righteous work creates awareness of His Blessings, that NEVER get old.

I feel like I have been walking thru the Word, following this story of Moses for a long time, even as it is recounted in many further scriptures, like Nehemiah. And this IS a real story worth remembering. Moses, after the parting of the Red Sea, taking the Israelites forward, traveling following the Pillar of Cloud and having protection from the Pillar of Fire at night – all this showing God helping, even if it was a long wandering path due to the rebellious sorts keeping them from completing the walk. Moses’s story is not just for the wandering but for the faithfulness of God in a broken world. Moses and the wandering Israelites were fittingly fitted for travel by God, who kept them together – physically. 40 years they wandered in the desert then crossed to the Promised Land and yet their clothes didn’t wear out, their feet did not swell. God-created this feat of feet – He made human form, including our feet, and He can form anything as His Feat. What is made from dust as flesh and bones is AMAZINGLY made. Just look at a newborn baby. Just look at the bones to grow and feet to walk.

It is not a perfect walk today either – just feeling my aching feet after half a day in bad shoes and yet God kept these folks in good feet for forty years. Many did rebel, however, and their next generations also broke the laws which would be the next covenants – and yet God made a new covenant – Who is Jesus walking with us today. God wants to walk us all HOME.

It’s true that we live in a broken world with a LOSS of what Adam once had walking with God – And we have better than just sandals made to walk over the brokenness to better-ness. God can and does make it work out for His mission of showing love, teaching us every step of the way. 

Will it be a long walk for us too? Yes.

Will God be there every step of the Way? Yes.

Keep being His Hands and Feet. 

Keep taking His Rest.

A broken world needs to see that God does not wear out.

Amen

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Moses said: “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him.” Deuteronomy 8:2-6 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+8&version=NIV

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Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. Yet the Lord says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 29:2-6 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+29&version=NIV

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Nehemiah remembered: 

By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take. “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Nehemiah 9:12-17

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V21 Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. 

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V28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the land of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;

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V31 Nevertheless for thy great mercies’ sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.