Moses was the ultimate hero of the Old Testament.
He was the strong leader who led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert right
up to the border of the Promised Land - but he didn't go in. Why? Because God wouldn't
let him. After all that he'd done in that forty-year journey, what did he do that was so
bad that he missed out on the prize? He banged his walking stick against a rock!
Wrong?
I've always felt
sorry for Moses when reading this story. Just to refresh your mind, this is how the Bible tells the story:
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.' Then Moses raised his arm and
struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
Numbers 20:7-8, 11 (NIVUK)
So, what was so wrong about that?
Poor Moses!
I'm familiar
with the explanation that Moses had gone further than God had told him to. God said "Speak to the
rock" but Moses "struck the rock twice". OK, but is that really so bad? He performed a miracle and
the people got the water they so badly needed and, for that, he was forbidden to reach the goal he'd
been heading towards for over half of his life. Poor Moses!
Display
The charge God
brought against Moses was that he hadn't treated God with "holy reverence" (The Message Bible)
and a clue to what that meant is in a word I used in the previous paragraph. He "performed" a miracle.
Moses' anger overcame him. Maybe also his pride. He'd become used to miracles to the point where
he made a dramatic display, striking out when God had told him just to speak (quietly?). He wasn't
motivated by trust in the Lord, but by his own self-confidence. There's a warning for us all in
this story. We must never treat God's gifts with contempt, taking them for granted, and making a
display of them.
Humbly
Now, I would never
say (as some do) that the age of miracles is past, but few of us have witnessed water being turned
to wine, water coming out of a rock on command, or anything like it. But we do have gifts, and we
should never take them for granted. Nor should we take credit for them. A gift is a gift -
something we didn't earn and have no natural right to. So, whatever our gifts, let's use them
humbly and gratefully. Reserve the honour for the One who gives every good gift.