Are you like me and hold those great leaders in the Old Testament in awe (the Abraham's, the Jacob's and Moses etc.), with how they heard the word of God and just acted on it. The truth though, when you study their lives, isn't always as faith filled as we might expect.
I was just reading the following passage in Numbers this week:
“Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell face down, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. The LORD said to Moses, ‘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 that 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. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’” Numbers 20:6-12
When I read this passage, what really struck me was that God was wanting to move in a fresh way, to do something new! He'd previously instructed Moses (Exodus 17:6) to strike a rock with his staff to bring forth water. But God didn't want to just repeat the miracle, he wanted to do it in a fresh way. Here was a man who was so close to God, that he regularly saw the physical manifestation of God, but when given a simple instruction of what to do to bring forth water, he opted to ignore the full instructions and instead he opted to repeat what he'd done before - hitting the rock, instead of speaking to it!
I don't know about you, but seeing Moses getting it wrong, it gives me some encouragement. Moses still saw a miracle, the water still appeared, but not how God had said and as a consequence, Moses missed out on the bigger picture of entering the promised land.
I was challenged as to whether in this journey we're currently on, have I, (have you) or have we similarly missed out on a great move of God by either expecting him to move in the same way he has done before or by putting our interpretation on God's plans? We may still have seen a miracle, but was it the one that God intended for us?
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