Post by Cindy on May 8, 2016 9:52:46 GMT -5
Where are our greatest problems? In the wilderness the Israelites are tired of difficulty, and, as is so often the case with sinful human beings, they start looking for someone to blame. Moses is an easy target, but Moses was not responsible for the situation Israel was in. God (through the pillar of fire and the cloud) had led them to this exact location. He had done so because he had a specific purpose in mind. This would be another occasion for God to demonstrate his power to the doubting Israelites.
This passage shows how quickly pain morphs into anger. It calls us to humbly admit that, as sinners, we tend to respond sinfully to whatever difficulty we encounter. This passage makes one thing clear: the anger we reveal in the middle of a trial says more about us than it does about the trial. The Bible keeps the focus on us! It confronts the self-righteousness and spiritual blindness that make us think that our greatest problems are outside us, not inside. We maintain that changes in situation, location, and relationship would allow us to respond differently. We say that the difficulty causes us to respond in sinful ways. But the Bible teaches again and again that our circumstances don’t cause us to act as we do. They only expose the true condition of our hearts, revealed in our words and actions.
“In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”” (Numbers 20:1–5)
Heart of the matter: Daily reflections for changing hearts and lives.
This passage shows how quickly pain morphs into anger. It calls us to humbly admit that, as sinners, we tend to respond sinfully to whatever difficulty we encounter. This passage makes one thing clear: the anger we reveal in the middle of a trial says more about us than it does about the trial. The Bible keeps the focus on us! It confronts the self-righteousness and spiritual blindness that make us think that our greatest problems are outside us, not inside. We maintain that changes in situation, location, and relationship would allow us to respond differently. We say that the difficulty causes us to respond in sinful ways. But the Bible teaches again and again that our circumstances don’t cause us to act as we do. They only expose the true condition of our hearts, revealed in our words and actions.
“In the first month the whole Israelite community arrived at the Desert of Zin, and they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”” (Numbers 20:1–5)
Heart of the matter: Daily reflections for changing hearts and lives.
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