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"My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean who went to live in Egypt." (Deuteronomy 26:5 NLT)
We called it the plunder room because that’s what we did there.
My maternal grandmother’s home had a large room built on the back—a room once a bedroom for a father who stayed with them. Sometime after that relative died, my grandfather tore away a part of the large farmhouse’s back porch, but he left what we called the plunder room.
My cousin and I often spent time there, sorting through the many discarded items to see if we could use anything as we tried to entertain ourselves on the farm. Technology hadn’t inundated our lives. Restlessness drove us there when we had nothing else particular to do.
Many of the Middle Eastern biblical characters were nomadic. Various occurrences caused them to change locations. For Jacob, it was learning his son, Joseph, wasn’t dead after all. A desire to see him and escape the famine that ravaged his land made him leave his homeland and travel to Egypt, where his descendants eventually spent four hundred years in slavery.
Restlessness is a taxing feeling. As a teen and even a young adult, I felt it hanging over my head more than once. The desire to get away … to escape. I couldn’t pinpoint any reason; I just wanted to leave. Hop on an empty railroad box car and see where it took me. Walk a power line and see where it led.
Looking back, I suppose my running from God caused my restlessness. I knew what He wanted from me, but my lifestyle warred against it like water against oil. Only when I stopped plundering in the wrong places and with the wrong people did I finally settle down.
I still periodically fight the restless spirit—the desire to return to what once was. Paul calls this battling the flesh, the part of us that wants to rebel against God and all we know to be right.
God wants us to plunder in His plunder room. Rather than discarded valueless items, God’s plunder room holds His purpose and plan. It houses the strength to do His work. He doesn’t want us to live aimlessly and purposelessly but to discover and follow His plan diligently.
Rather than plundering aimlessly, plunder around in God’s plunder room. There, you will find His plan and purpose for you.
Martin Wiles
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