Look at What Bit You

Context

The Israelites have been wandering the desert for years, and they are done. The food is the same every morning, the road goes nowhere, and they let Moses and God hear about all of it.

Then venomous snakes move through the camp, and the complaining stops cold.

Story

The people run to Moses begging him to make the snakes leave. He prays. But God doesn't pull the snakes out of the camp. He tells Moses to forge one out of bronze, mount it on a pole, and lift it up where everyone can see.

The instructions sound like they shouldn't work.

Look at the thing that's killing you. And you'll live.

People who are dying turn their heads toward a metal sculpture of the exact creature that bit them. And the venom doesn't win. They don't get an antidote or a snake-free camp. They get a pole, a long look, and a body that keeps going.

What We Learn

There's something in us that wants the snake removed instead of faced — the diagnosis taken back, the conversation un-had.

Sometimes God pulls the snake out of the camp. Sometimes he just hands us a pole.

Healing isn't always the thing leaving. Sometimes it's us, finally looking up.