“Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.” So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as He commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank“. 2 Chronicles 20:8-11 NIV
You may recall that God had shown Moses that He could bring water from a rock before. Moses had struck a rock with the staff and seen a gusher come out to quench the thirst of the people. There is something different about this occasion, however, but before we get there, look at what happens in verse twelve:
“But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”
Wow! The first time Moses struck the rock with water, he was obeying God exactly. God was pleased, Moses was rewarded, and the people were satisfied. This time, God is not happy, Moses loses reward, and we are left to examine why.
Do you see a difference in what God commanded and what Moses did? Read the verses again. God said to “speak” the water out of the rock. Moses struck the rock with his stick two times. Moses may have thought to himself, “God, this is a hard rock. To get water out of this rock, I’m going to have to strike it like I did before.” Moses, however, did not fully obey God, and God was not pleased. (Thankfully, God didn’t punish the people for Moses’ disobedience.)
The first time, God had Moses strike the rock. No doubt this took great faith on the part of Moses. Who ever heard of water coming out of a rock? Moses may have looked pretty silly banging on that rock had water not come out. The second time, God called Moses to have even greater faith. Moses was to simply speak and the water would come out from the rock. Now you may be thinking what I thought the first time I read this: Big Deal! But, it was a big deal. God wanted Moses to grow in his faith. God wanted to see evidence of his deeper faith.
Do you sometimes feel the challenge of the Christian life get more difficult?
As you grow in your Christian life, God will require more of you. Not for salvation. That was done on the cross. As you grow in your relationship with Christ, you will be held more accountable with Kingdom responsibility. He wants you to trust Him more as He uses you more. Much like an older child may have bigger responsibilities within a family, if you’ve been in the family long, God expects you to have learned a few things by now.
What He calls you to do won’t always make sense, at least not in the natural realm, but when God calls us to something, we are to do exactly as He tells us to do it! God wants to see that our love for Him and our faith in Him is growing.
Be honest, has your faith grown more in the past year?
Yes, it has. I think that many time Christians have trouble trusting God or following His commands – which at some level seems stupid; I mean not trust God??? Sheesh.
But we have what we see as right and we have our timing and that's not usually how God sees it. The scripture talks about God as a father and presents the argument about how an earthly father will surely give his son bread or a fish and not a rock or a snake and if an earthly father would behave in this way, shouldn't a heavenly one do even better? The thing that I think we see at times is that we think God should always provide to us like we expect. Several years ago I was struggling with my walk with God. I was going to church, tithing, praying and on and on. And it wasn't that God didn't provide, but it seemed that every step was labored and strained and that we just barely made it each year. Kind of like hanging over a cliff; He'd never let me drop, but never pulled me to safety either.
When my marriage finally took a hit about 4 years ago, I realized through prayer, counseling, etc., that the problem wasn't God, it wasn't my wife (OK, maybe a little) it was me. I was not walking in the path that God wanted me to walk in, trusting Him for everything and living like that. He was denying me some of the love that we think is in the Matthew passage I referenced above, but instead was doing the tough love that we sometimes don't like to think about. As I have learned to refocus my life and I got more in line with His will, things started to change. I'm still not the most handsome man with tons of money and power and respect 🙂 ,but I can daily see His hand in my life. Things still break and go wrong and there are still stresses, but I also see how He's working in my life to make these more manageable and I'm just more happy and content overall.
The one issue that still remains is the marriage, which is another exercise in paradoxes. A reading of Ephesians 5 passages on marriage outlines what I and she really are expected to do. I'm doing my part well, she is not, and it "appears" that I am the one still being punished. I don't understand and it's frustrating and lonely, but I've seen so much of what else He has done in my life and I am being faithful to Him, my vows, my wife and my marriage. In one sense this is difficult because, looking at the entire picture, when I was failing Him my marriage was a mess and now that I am following Him so much more closely it's still a mess. I see what I am expected to do and I do it, yet I still don't have my wife back as one flesh. And that could just be that He's working in her heart now. But it does seem to fly in the face of a loving father taking care of the needs of an obedient child. So, yes, sometimes being faithful and growing in that faith is hard because many times it just doesn't make sense to us, the children.
Thanks for sharing your story.
I’ve heard this taught before as a lesson in obedience for leaders, but I never heard it before as an issue of faith. You gave me something to think about.
Thinking is good