moses— fierce obedience
Buckle up– this week’s blog is a little longer. Have you ever heard the story of the little baby that was put in a basket and floated down the Nile River? A law in Egypt was written so that every son born to a Hebrew had to be killed. Pretty gruesome, right? A Levite woman had a son and she hid him for three months. When she could no longer hide him, she put him in a basket made of papyrus reeds and placed it among the reeds on the river bank (Exodus 2:3). Pharoah’s daughter, while bathing along the river, saw the basket. When she saw what was in it, she felt bad for the baby.
Do you know who the baby was? It was Moses. Pharoah’s daughter named him Moses “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:10b). You see, according to the law, Moses wasn’t even supposed to live. Yet from the very beginning of his life, God was there watching out for him. Moses' story is a bit of a rollercoaster.
This is the part of his story that most of you will know Moses by. One night, Moses was tending to his father-in-law's flock, and all of a sudden, “the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” (Exodus 3:2). Okay I don't know about you, but if a bush just burst into flames I’d feel a little crazy. That’s beside the point though. The Lord tells Moses that he is going to lead God’s people out of Egypt.
Moses is immediately like “I think you’ve got the wrong guy.” And God says, “Nope, I don't.” Moses feels inadequate to lead God’s people out of Egypt. Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). God proceeds to tell him that Moses should tell them that “I AM has sent me to you.” Moses still doubts his ability to do what God is instructing him to. This part is cool. The Lord instructs Moses to throw his staff on the ground. His staff becomes a serpent and God instructs him to pick it back up and it becomes a staff again. How amazing is that??
God sent Aaron, Moses' brother with him to speak. Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh and request that he release the Israelites from slavery. Of course, Pharaoh says no. God promises deliverance for His people. So thus begins the 10 plagues. I’m not going to go over them in this blog, but go read them, they are INTENSE. After the 10th plague, Pharaoh let the people go.
After Pharaoh let them go, he regretted his decision. So the Egyptians saddled up and went after them. This is where Moses parts the Red Sea. The Lord instructs Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. As Moses does, the sea parts. Once all of the people of Isreal were across the sea, the waves crashed down on them and not one Egyptian survived.
As Moses led the people of Isreal through the desert, they grew frustrated and impatient complaining about their lack of food and water. Moses brought their complaints to the Lord. In Numbers 20:8 God instructed Moses to “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.” Notice God said, “Speak to that rock.” He didn’t say dance around the rock, sing to the rock, hit the rock, he said SPEAK to the rock. This is where Moses' greatest mistake came. Moses struck the rock.
Moses did what the Lord asked him to do, but he did it in his own way. How often do we do the same thing? God will ask us to do something, yet we grow impatient or frustrated because God isn’t answering our prayer in the time frame or way we thought he would– whether it’s a promise He’s given you or something you’ve been praying for. Mose taking things into his own hands, inevitably cost him his ability to enter into the promised land (Canaan).
“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.”
Numbers 20:12
I think this is such an important message for us today. When we attempt to take the promises of God into our own hands, we often miss out on the fullness of His promise. We miss out on going into the land of Canaan.
Takeaway: Moses was obedient, but he was obedient in his own way. In the end, he grew frustrated with God and His timing, and it cost him the ability to go into Canaan. If you take anything from this week's blog, let it be this– be fiercely obedient to God. Even when it’s taking longer than expected. Even when it’s not looking how you thought it would. Even when it looks like everything is falling apart be fiercely obedient to God.
