LISTEN AND OBEY
Numbers 20:8
"Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle."
It was 3 hours after dark and 2 hunters were still out. To make matters worse, the temperatures were dropping fast and the overnight low was expected to be negative 15-20°. If we did let find them, they would surely die before morning.
Two of us followed their tracks and found where they had turn away from the field they were hunting and into a 10,000 acre swamp with no roads. We walked, yelling their names as we went. Eventually we saw a flashlight far ahead on a small knoll in the swamp. The two men were soaked in sweat and if they had stopped they would have frozen to death quickly.
This all happened because even though I had told them where to go and not go, they decided to do it their own way. It nearly cost them their lives. We all do these things on occasion. We all take things in our own hands when we shouldn't.
Moses had been traveling in the wilderness for quite some time. He was waiting to get into the land that the Lord had promised. His whole life was set on that mission and yet because he didn't trust God to do something on His own, that land was never seen by Moses.
Moses was tired of Gods people grumbling. Instead of trusting what God had said, "tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water"... Moses got angry and used his anger instead by striking the rock. This isn't what God had commanded.
How many times in life do we go ahead of God by trying to do things ourselves when we really should be waiting on the Lord? When God says, do it this way and we think we know better? Instead of resting on what the Lord has promised, we move ahead and push, because we have to provide the answer in our timing not His. It could be one little thing, but it will become a pattern of impatience and self reliance. While we don't even know it we've set God's plan aside for our own. Not that they are all bad plans, but they are not Gods plans.
I may have used the example before of my Jr high Sunday School music leader. It seemed as though every week we sang the same song. At the time we would snicker amongst ourselves... But the meaning and the words stuck
HE OWNS THE CATTLE ON A 1000 HILLS
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills,
The wealth in every mine;
He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills,
The sun and stars that shine.
Wonderful riches, more than tongue can tell -
He is my Father so they're mine as well;
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills -
I know that He will care for me.
Think about it... How many times do we jump ahead of God. He says, "trust Me", "Wait for Me" and it seems right for little while... But then we grow tired of waiting and take matters into our own hands. Maybe the waiting was our lesson. Maybe God needed for us to see that He could provide for us without our back breaking exhausting effort.
And maybe we needed to listen to the Psalmist when he wrote down God's word...
Psalm 46:10
He says, "Be still, and know that I am God..."
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