“...and
the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of
Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord,
‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ “ (Exodus
17:3-4)
I
admire the honesty we find in the Bible; like in this account of the people who
knew themselves to be God’s chosen people quarrelling with Moses. Moses - the
very same guy they were convinced was chosen by God to lead them out of slavery
and out of Egypt and “into the land of milk and honey.”
Only now Moses fears for his life at their hands.
And if they were to stone Moses? That’s not going to lead them to water, it’s just going to leave Moses dead – and put them in violation of the commandment “thou shall not murder.”
Their
thirst threatens to separate them from God.
Sometimes
we fall into the habit of letting “the way it is” determine our willingness to
“see things the way they are” and that can put distance between God and us.
We’re
half-way through the season of Lent, a time some of us Christians use to let go
of habits, or at least suspend them in order to draw ourselves into newer and even
deeper relationship with God.
God
did quench the Israelites thirst from the least likely of places.
Likewise,
God offers to quench our spiritual thirst by sending Jesus Christ to us from
the least likely of places ("Nazareth! Can anything good come from
there?" John 1:46).
Join
us Sundays at 10AM as we take a big thirst-quenching gulp and strive to see
things the way God-in-Christ sees them.
Together
We Serve,
Pastor
Mike
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