Stillness and Wandering (Lent 23-2014)

Men have a somewhat notorious reputation for not liking to ask for directions.  Deserved or not, I suppose, depends on the man. 

This man, Moses, wasn’t afraid to ask God for direction. So, the forty years of wandering about the wilderness weren’t Moses’ fault.  Moses was going exactly where God was leading the Israelites.  

Maybe aimless geographically, but with a very clear and direct purpose. 

Thousands of rebellious Hebrews were wandering all around the Sinai Peninsula killing time, or being killed by time.  This was the end for any of the ingrates who could only think of their stomachs and their safety even after God brought them out of Egyptian slavery… on dry land… miraculously…through the Red Sea and refused to enter the Promised Land because of unbelief in God.

How easily they and we forget!

Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. 7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'” 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15 As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

What about us?  Where are you?  Are you wandering around in unbelief?

Have you thought of asking God for directions?  Have you been grumbling in the wilderness of your life?  How often do we imagine that all this aimlessness is pointless?  When is God finally going to act?

God’s ways involve a circuitous route to a straight line destination.  Life is what happens while we’re busy planning; and it is life, true life, that He desires to give us by taking us on the scenic route, building our faith..

On the scenic journey, we will see things and experience things that prepare us for the Promised Land ahead.  The scenic route is a journey of relationship and of formation and of purification.

Be Still.  I see the straight line because I’m in heaven.  The only reason you see pointlessness is because you can’t see My point. 

Be Still.  I have things planned for you along the journey.  You don’t need to take out a map as long as you have My guidance.

Be Still.  I’m not making you make your own way.  I’m asking you to seek My way.

Be Still and Know that I AM God.  Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Be Still and Know that I AM God.  I’m perfectly serious about how you view Me.

Questions for reflection:

1. Are you still in the hand of God, seeking His direction by faith?  Or are you wrestling, squirming, and wandering in your unbelief?
2. Are you trying to make your own way in this life?  Or are you seeking God and His kingdom first?
3. Read  Jude 1:5 “Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.”  All of the ones who crossed the Red Sea alive were Israelites.  Not all of those ethnic Israelites entered the Promised Land.  What does that say to those of us in the Church and our responsibility to be faithful to God?  Is it enough to call yourself a Christian?  Why or why not?