By James Choung
From Numbers 10.29-32, Moses is having an interesting conversation with his brother-in-law, Hobab. In the previous chapter, it was clear that God was leading the camp. When His cloud lifted, they would march. When it settled, they would stay. And they would follow the cloud.
What’s clear is that God is guiding them, right?
But when Hobab declares his intent to leave the Israelite community to head back to his family in Midian, Moses begs him to stay. His reason? “You know all the best places to camp in the wilderness. We need your eyes.”
Wasn’t God leading them?
But they also needed Hobab, a skilled guide?
Who’s leading: God or Hobab?
It’s these kinds of splits we’d like to make in our own lives. It’s either-or. One or the other. It’s as if the two can’t play together nicely in the sandbox.
Last year, I had breakfast with a Christian professor in biology. He was gifted with a mind for science, teaching at Syracuse before moving into Christian higher education. For him, sciences show us what God has doing all along. God’s very presence is upholding the natural laws that we can study, and should motivate us to study His creation all the more. Somehow, God is in it. As the soul inhabits the body, so God inhabits the universe. And God leads this pursuit of knowledge, whether it’s by his whispers or by the rigors of scientific study. In fact, science gives us the how, but falls into religion when it starts dabbling in the why. Each have their bounds. But in the end, isn’t, as the saying goes, all truth, God’s truth?
So God gave Hobab the skills. And somehow, working with Hobab doesn’t negate the cloud’s leading. They work hand-in-hand. Both are needed. And all of it works toward His purposes.
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