
i’ve spent most of my fifty-some years reminding God that He created me to be addicted-for-life to the salt water breezes and that surely He’d never ask me to venture very far inland for very long. i’ve reminded Him to the point where i secretly suspect He might someday send me deep into america’s heartland where it’s parched and dry and oh-so-far from the coast, just to grow that demanding corner of my heart because He knows that would be a good thing. and i suppose He’d be right.
meanwhile, i’m savoring where i’m situated here in the pacific northwest, even on gray, damp, dreary days like today. so i’m sure it comes as no surprise to tell you nothing pushes me further out of my comfort box than to read in exodus about the people of israel and their forty-year whiney wandering in the middle eastern wilderness.
our new church has just called a new pastor, who spent all of last week getting to know us before he was officially asked to come. one of those “getting to know you” times was at o-dark-o’clock last wednesday morning where twenty or thirty of us bleary-eyed souls gathered with pastor phil mccallum
to learn a new approach to morning devotions with God and our Bibles.
because it was january 27 and the nifty little reading calendar he handed out called for it we opened our Bibles to exodus chapter 17, where lo and behold, if we didn’t find ourselves wandering the wilderness with israel.
“start here and read the next four chapters,” was the challenge, “and when something jumps off the page at you, stop and write about it. then ask God to use it to change you as you begin your day.” or something like that. (since my brain would not show up for three more hours i’m a little fuzzy on the details.)
a little background here: keep in mind that exodus 17 finds the people of israel wandering only a month after they’d had seen God miraculously carry them out of egypt’s choking grip, pulling back the red sea so they could cross it and escape. only a week after they’d seen God miraculously start sending manna-meals to the ground, every single morning, to keep them alive. they’d seen plagues of locusts and frogs, watched moses’ staff turn the nile river to blood. they’d heard the night wailing of every egyptian family who’d lost their firstborn son as the nation refused the Lord’s call to let His people go.
heavy stuff. i know someone who says they’d believe in God if He showed up big. well, that’s big.
anyway, i dutifully started reading. and i got stuck on the very first verses. when i finished reading i flipped back to them and have been thinking about them ever since.
here’s what they said:
“then all the congregation of the sons of israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
therefore, the people quarreled with moses …. the people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against moses …. so moses cried out to the Lord, saying “what shall i do to this people? a little more and they will stone me!” …
then the Lord said to moses, ‘pass before the people … take in your hand your staff with which you struck the nile, and go. behold, I will stand before you there on the rock … and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.’ and moses did so ………
then amalek came and fought against israel … so moses said to joshua, ‘choose men for us and go out, fight against amalek…. and joshua did as moses told him.”
and here’s what i wrote:
before we shake an impatient, accusing finger at israel we’ve got to admit our life journey isn’t always so different from theirs. despite our fumbling, bumbling, stumbling and stubborn choices God has faithfully led us and provided for us ~ sometimes even miraculously. but how quickly we forget that…
sometimes we find ourselves “in the wilderness” because we’ve walked ourselves out there. but i read in exodus that sometimes the Lord actually leads us out there, even to places where we feel parched and desperate. because at those times, in those places, what’s really in our hearts becomes obvious. what needs help becomes very clear. or as a longtime friend and pastor once told me, “what flows out of us when we get squeezed reveals what’s flowing inside of us all the time ~ is it lemon juice or lemonade?”
israel grumbled and quarreled. and sometimes i do, too. so i’m thinkin’ lemon juice.
oh Lord, give me Your grace to sweeten that up.
and our journey out from the wilderness is in stages. how i wish that weren’t so. how i wish disobedience ~ mine or someone’s close to me ~ could be met with an “ahaa!!” lightening bolt of a moment that once and forever changed a course and a character. but no. real change takes time. and usually lots of it. and the journey is so wearying along the way. two steps forward, one step ~ or three ~ back. darn it.
most amazing to me is that despite all the grumbling and complaining and faithless fretting, in the middle of the wilderness the Lord still gave those ornery people every single thing they needed to live and walk and keep following Him. every single day.
for forty years.
now the forty years part was their own doing. God had set them on an unmistakably direct line, marked by miracles at every turn, through the sand to the land He’d long promised them. but when they got within shouting distance and sent spies ahead to scope it out, ten of the twelve men came back shaking in their boots saying, “nope, can’t do it. not gonna.”
only young caleb and joshua seemed to remember any of what the Lord brought them through. and their courage was loudly overruled, so a patient God took action, the straight line went curvy, and everyone took a forty year trudge until the faithless had fallen and were buried in the dunes.
yikes. that’s harsh. everyone took that forty year trudge. even joshua. the one who’d done everything he was asked. the one who’d shown courage and fought hard and who could see clearly what the Lord could ~ would ~ do if they’d just keep pressing on.
to my dismay i’m not sure i could take that trudge without resenting it.
“it wasn’t me, Lord, that got us into this mess!”
“why do i have to be so impacted by someone else’s sin?”
“but i don’t want to wait for them to come around!”
grumbling. lemon juice.
but joshua just trudged. and trusted. and kept doing what he was told. and when the forty years were over he was still standing, still obeying, so the Lord could use him to lead the way into that promised land i might have given up all hope for.
Lord, will You somehow make me like joshua? give me Your grace to walk alongside and just keep trudging, trusting, doing what You ask of me. and give me a heart of lemonade!