We are always quick in preachin’ and concluding: Moses didn’t enter the promised land because he was angry. But we never ask who the cause of the anger was! The judgement and finger-pointing ceases when you are in the shoes of the cause of Moses’ anger. I imagine you being among the Israelites who kept complaining to him about the food, and the heat, stating that Egypt was better.
After all the wonders you’d seen, being grumpy should not have been on your list! How dare you ask for the same thing you had begged God to take away. This might be farfetched, but it was equivalent to someone saying ‘Give me back the cancer you healed me from!’ — though they had come so far.
Yes, Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it the second time because of his indignation towards Israel. But this same Moses pleaded with God to spare your life when God wanted to kill you (having made a golden calf in Exodus 32).
So even if there are other lessons from that, we ought to take responsibility as the sheep, as followers, and as disciples. Obviously Moses didn’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling on His inside like the New Testament creatures. He might not have had the fruit of long suffering or self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) He could not have mastered his body from lunging to kill that Egyptian before he fled to the wilderness; and now, he’d disobeyed God.
He said, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock? …” (Numbers 20:10) Can you hear him shout ‘REBELS!’ He was still enraged by these so-called rebels (Israelites).
The moral is the duality in the call of action for both the shepherd and the sheep. The shepherd must master power over self, or exercise him or herself in the fruit of God, being able as well to maturely carry through whichever instruction God requires of him independent of the sheep. And on the other hand, the sheep — we — must not be stubborn and stiff-necked hypocrites. We can’t keep quoting James for others: be slow to anger; yet we are the quick ones to anger them! We can’t keep quoting Paul: rejoice always; yet be the cause of the pain of others!
I had a previous encounter with someone whom I had to meet and pray with about very critical issues. We rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled. Communication was poor from the other party, and time after time, I was descending the path of flying off the handle. Just when I almost had the last straw, God kindly asked me to find the man, even when it was getting late for me. I wanted to give up, but God reminded ‘Love doesn’t give up.’ When we finally met, part of the meet composed of inexpressible groanings of repentance from the party. “Thank you for not giving up on me.” He cried. We blessed God for His mercy and grace.
This could go two-way: I being angry not to go pray for someone a prayer which could antagonize hell; or the party taking the grace for granted, thinking God will always ‘pardon.’
We shouldn’t keep giving God excuses. He expects us to step up. To show up. To grow. To grow teeth. To leave breast milk and chew meat. He expects us to take a short time around that mountain. Fall, but rise again. Fall but learn, and get it right. If we don’t, we could be Moses. God won’t charge it on whom made us angry, but us.
David knew better than killing Bathsheba’s husband. But he broke on realizing what he had done. He took the blame. He was where he wasn’t supposed to be. Most of us would blame the lady bathing at noon in an open-roof bathroom. Pointing the other way always like the self-righteous Pharisee at the sinner, and never seeing that we contribute to the elephant in the room.
We blame the bad government and corruption, and yet we the christians refuse to step up to the political positions. The list could go on and on; but in a nutshell, the gazette is here to caution us to examine ourselves before we take to the streets, to ascertain that we are not really part of the problem we are parading and condemning.
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