How Fickle Is Your Trust in God?

³¹ And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”  ~ Exodus 14:31

At the surface, this verse is about God’s incredible power being displayed against the Egyptians as God rescues His people out of Egypt, which inspires awe in his people as they put their trust in Him.  Upon closer examination, when you study out the history of Hebrew slaves after they escape Egypt, you will see that their initial awe in God was as capricious as the waves of the sea.

Is your trust in God as fleeting as beauty (Proverbs 31:30), strongly felt only under certain circumstances? What happens to your trust long after God performs the miracle in your life? Do you then forget God’s faithfulness and repeat your cycle of complaints as the Israelites did?

³² In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God, ³³ who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.

³⁴ When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: ³⁵ “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, ³⁶ except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

~ Deuteronomy 1:32-36

Trust = following God WHOLE-heartedly = Obedience without question

Despite God’s promises delivered through Moses’s mouth, the Israelites still did not trust. God tried to show them the way to go. God tried to guide them, but as stubborn sheep, they refused to follow.

Is there anything you’re UNWILLING to do right now (e.g., relocate, let go of a relationship even though you know it’s bad, repent of a certain sin that you keep repeating, etc.)?

Imagine this: some random guy, who appears out of nowhere, promises to deliver you and your people out of slavery, and leads you into the wilderness where there are no amenities. He also claims to be sent by God and if you want out, you’d better follow his lead.

The Israelites felt extremely vulnerable in the wilderness. Even though their situation in Egypt was bad, it was what they were familiar with. They had grown comfortable with their Egyptian master’s harshness and cruelty. Day and night the Hebrew slaves cried out for deliverance and when God finally delivered them, they certainly did not expect the wilderness.

The Hebrew slaves depended on their masters for food and shelter. Now, they had to depend on their Invisible Master who used Moses to lead them. And they didn’t really know Moses — after all, he was MIA for 40 years before God called him to go back to Egypt to lead His people!

As hard as it sounds to follow a random man who claims he will deliver you, God demonstrated numerous miracles for the Israelites that Moses was their chosen leader.  Witnessing this man depart the Red Sea and watching the ocean wipe away the millions of chariots, warriors and horses was not a big enough sign that this man came from God. They still wanted more.

We are not that different from the Israelites. We still forget God’s faithfulness and then we complain. How quickly we forget!

“Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.” ~ Deuteronomy 4:9

We fervently beg God day and night to be delivered out of a bad situation, but when we are called to step out of our comfort zone and be vulnerable and naked before God, we don’t really “see” the deliverance, but only our apparent lack of resources.  To me, being vulnerable means that I have to constantly rely on God for support because I don’t know where my resources will come from.

Is there an area in your life that never works out no matter what solution you try?

“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundation of the earth…?” ~ Isaiah 51:12-13

At the end of the day, all God wants is for us to trust in Him, no matter what is going on in our lives.  He may have delivered you out of a bad situation into something totally unexpected (and undesirable), but you never know what God is doing for your benefit.  Look at the evidence of miracles in your life.  Would God bring you this far only to disappoint you in the end?

#trust #pray #musingz4life

 

Nothing Breaks You Like Being in Need

If I had never been in need, I would never feel the compassion that I do now for others who are in need. As a young woman, I was very independent, self-sufficient and emotionally distant. I expected everyone to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps because that’s what I had to do for myself. With no one to guide me since childhood, I’ve learned to navigate through life trying to survive the hell hole in which I grew up. In the back of my mind, though, I knew that if I fall or if anything happened to me, I had no family members who would offer support. I have nothing to fall back on, so I HAVE to be strong.

This produced an arrogance in me that isolated me from others. It wasn’t the type that made me feel like I was better than other people. In my pride I was so self-deceived that I did not see my need for help so I never asked for it, because deep down I did not believe that anyone would want to help me if I was not their family member. This was the type of arrogance that sucked any compassion that could have resided in my heart, because I viewed others as “lazy” and “needy” if they asked for help. Therefore, when my turn came to be in need, I also viewed myself in the same way: needy, lazy and useless.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a hard worker and through the years I learned that when life deals you a bad hand, it doesn’t matter who you are — you have to humble out and reach out!  “No man is an island,” as the English poet John Donne once said. We exist in community, not in isolation. There are those who are naturally compassionate and nurturing, but for people like myself, we have to be broken twice — or multiple times — to get in touch with our sensitive side.

God calls us to be humble toward one another, to clothe ourselves with humility and compassion (Colossians 3:12).

“But those who suffer [God] delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.” Job 36:15

Without suffering, there’d be no compassion. Suffering does not always produce compassion; in fact it can produce quite the opposite — bitterness — and in my case there was lots of it!  When you stick with God, however, and allow Him to work on your heart through times of affliction, only He can uproot that bitterness and turn you into someone better.

You can probably help someone in need if you have the means and resources, but if you’ve never been in their shoes, an element of humanity might be missing. When we allow ourselves to feel our need for help (i.e., admit feelings of loneliness, shame, guilt, financial straits, etc.), we will appreciate the assistance a lot differently when we do receive it. In turn we’ll be able to help others more effectively because this time, we’d be seeing them with different eyes.

#compassion #LoveLikeJesus #humility #dontbetooproud #prideisolates #nomanisanisland #musingz4life