Or, What I’ve Learned from Email
Computers are marvelous! One of the things I enjoy most about them is the ability to save the 33 cents I would otherwise give to the U. S. Postal Service – instead, I just send email (that is a contraction of electronic mail, which is really quite a simple matter of me writing a note and "addressing" it to someone’s unique electronic identification on a large computer system that serves as an electronic Post Office).
The greatest feature of email is that it is (generally) very fast [usually under 30 minutes to literally circle the globe, although it did take about a week for Lee Wolf to get a recent message from me and he lives just across town. It probably got stuck in China, somewhere], and allows us to almost instantaneously contact our loved ones, such our son and his wife, who have been stationed in Germany for over a year. Now that he is going to Kosovo, we will communicate with him via email and his Trans-European cellular phone (ain’t technology great?).
Another feature of email is the ability to send "mail" to large groups of people (similar to a mailing list to which you mail out say, 50 copies of something you want them all to read). Of course, you have heard about all the trash that is also sent by email, but that is no more a condemnation of email than the junk mail in your mailbox is a condemnation of your mailman.
Over the next few weeks, I plan to share some of the great things I have received. This is the first installment, and I hope you will like it:
The Biggest Mathematical Miracle in the World!
With Slight Editing
Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them? They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 tons of food each day.
Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each at least a mile I in length would be required! Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food. This would take 4000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day. And just think, they were forty years in transit.
They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day, and a freight train with tank cars, 1800 miles long, just to bring water!
Another thing! They had to get across the Red Sea at night. (They did?) Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So, There had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in one night. But then, there is another problem.
Each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long...think of it! This much space, just for nightly camping.
Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? I think not! You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him. Now do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?
Royce’s "Moral of the Story"
You and I spend far too much time worrying about how we are going to do what we must do and whether we will have what we need each day. Yet, Jesus told us that each day has sufficient problems without our worrying about it. It’s going to be there, so why worry about it? We cannot change it; we can only react to it.
The scriptures teach that God will care for His people. David said, "I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread" (Psalm 37:25). Every provision we have in this life has come from God; He is the giver of every good thing that is given (James 1:17).
What on earth are we thinking when we feel we must worry about whether God will do what He has promised to do? Jesus said,
"…do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!" (Matthew 6:25-30)
Our problem, unlike Moses, is the lack of faith. Believe that God will do what He said He would do!
