Forty!!!

This year I turn forty. Yup, forty. Not the nineteen I tell me students that I am. (Some of them still can't figure out how old I am so I'm sticking with nineteen for now.) Forty. And I am looking forward to it.

Yes, you don't need to reread that. I really wrote that I am looking forward to it. Why? Well, let's look at forty. I opened up my Strong's Concordance and "forty" has about a column and a half of scriptural references.

Genesis 7:4 "In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I'll make a clean sweep of everything that I've made." That seems bad, right? Forty days of rain and it will wipe out everything. The only ones saved where Noah and his family and the animals God brought to him. Everything else, the evil, the hurt, the grime and dirt of the world were gone.

Forty is one of the numbers Abraham asked God about when he was trying to get Lot saved from destruction. Of course there weren't forty righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. I think it's interesting that Abraham kept asking God numbers of people, like He didn't know there weren't that many people. God keeps letting us ask and He patiently keeps answering, even when He knows we are hedging around the real question.

Isaac was forty when he married Rebekah. Esau was forty when he married. The Egyptian embalming of Israel even took forty days. And that's just Genesis!

Moses lived in Egypt forty years, lived in exile for forty years, and lead the Israelites around the wilderness for forty years. He spent forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai with God and in the end came down with the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

The spies Moses sent into the Promised Land were there for forty days before returning with their report. Caleb was forty when Moses sent him into the Promised Land to spy it out. The judge, Othniel, went to war against Aram Naharaim and then the land was quiet for forty years. After Deborah and Jael defeat Canaan the land was quiet for forty years. The land was quiet for forty years after Gideon broke the hold of Midian.

There is more in the Old Testament, but on to the New.

Jesus was fasting in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. After His resurrection He showed Himself for forty days before ascending.

There are forty days, forty days and nights, being forty years-old, and forty years, and these are just some of the forties. Some seem negative, wondering and waiting, but during those times God removes what needs to be removed and He takes care of the needs at the same time. These times, I am sure were hard and challenging, but He takes them through.

There are also forty years of quiet in the land. Those were times when there was no attack from without and the people were following the laws of the Lord. That would be nice, right forty years of quiet in life. That said, those forty years were times of cleansing, of getting rid of the stuff that needs to go. I would rather those years of pruning and becoming more like Christ than forty quiet ones. Also those forty years came after years of being controlled by others and having to fight a war to gain the quiet. I would be okay with that.

Then there are those examples of people being forty when... So I guess that is one reason I am glad to turn forty. I would love for my forty to be one of those examples. I am looking forward to being forty. I can't even believe that I can actually saw that.