Yay, you're here. I'm Lisa Whittle, and welcome to Jesus Over Everything, affectionately known as Joe, a short practical podcast where we will not be perfect, we will be honest, and we'll talk a lot about Jesus along the way. If you're just joining in, maybe brand new to the podcast, first,

welcome, and you are hopping in right in the midst of a Joe Shopping Fast series, as a whole

group of us are fasting from consumerism for six weeks, some of us as a conviction for Lent,

some of us as something we've had on our heart to do for a while or just joined

this process at the last minute. A lot of us have been reevaluating the place shopping has had

in our lives. Week three is where we are in the process. We've covered detox, discovery,

and now this week, cravings. Because as most of us know in the midst of a change process,

we often have to get over the hump of pining for an old way

during the process to move to the good new way that is to come.

Thank you. I think a lot of us as Christians have always felt a sort of kinship and understanding with the Israelites in the Bible.

Not necessarily that we've wanted that connection because the Israelites didn't really behave well much of the time. They complained. They were unfaithful to God. They often

forgot his goodness to them. They were in a cycle of forgetting him, then needing him, then

asking for his forgiveness, then having contrition, God being good and forgiving them, and then them forgetting him again

when life sort of smoothed over. So we don't love the connection, and yet we know ourselves too,

and we know we are so much like that. And yet maybe nothing has shown us just how similar we are

to the Israelites than this quarantine. We are literally them in so many ways.

One of the things I always remember about the Israelites, and this time has reminded me especially,

is their pining for what they used to have, even though what they used to have was actual

captivity. The Israelites dramatically rescued from their

captivity as slaves in Egypt, remember, became emotionally tired of obeying God. They didn't want to be

in the wilderness without direction, even though their wilderness experience would have been a lot

shorter, remember, had they actually

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