Growing up, my family enjoyed camping here in Northern Michigan. I inherited our four-person tent, and the smell of it takes me back 35 years to some great memories.
Part of the joy of camping is surviving in the outdoors without all our modern conveniences (e.g. indoor plumbing and pillow-top mattresses). If we’re honest, we look forward to going camping, and after a few days we look forward to going home. As I heard a comic say, “all our families used to camp—that’s why we invented houses!”
Well, did you know it was God who invented the one week camping trip? You can read about it in Leviticus 23:33-43. The LORD commanded that His people should “rejoice” and “celebrate” a feast together for seven days in the seventh month of every year. What made this time of spiritual celebration special was they were to cut “branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees” and build “booths” (or tabernacles)—temporary shelters to live in during the feast time.
Imagine everyone in the church roughing it, as one author describes the Feast of Booths as, “all the fun and inconveniences of camping.” God always has a reason behind His rules, and this camping week was to remind them of how He rescued them “out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43).
The feast marked that time of their being freed from slavery and staying in temporary shelters until they settled in the Promised Land. Maybe the next time you go camping (or stay at a budget motel) you’ll be reminded how God has a promised heavenly home being prepared for you. By grace you’ve been brought out of sin’s slavery, and this life on earth is only temporary. “This world is not my home—I’m just a passing through.”
