When Moses Takes Too Long

Moses had been gone a long time.

It had been over a month since the leader of the newly freed Israelites had gone up the mountain, disappearing behind the cloud that appeared as a consuming fire. The Israelites had said, in unison, that they would do everything that the Lord said to do.  And why not?  Hadn't God promised to go before them?  But now, God wasn't leading them anywhere.  Moses was up in that fiery cloud, and they were waiting.  Right now, the command was to wait.  The command was to wait for Moses to come back down.

But when the Israelites saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come and make us a god to go before us. As for this Moses fellow, who brought us up out of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.”

Moses had been gone a long time. Something might have happened to him. He might have even died. They might be waiting in vain for him to return and tell them what to do.

Forty days.  Forty nights.  That was too long for the Israelites to wait.  They decided it was time for them to take matters into their own hands.  If Moses wasn’t coming back with instructions from the God who was supposed to go before them, they would have Aaron make them another god to lead them.

So Aaron took their jewelry, melted it, and made it into the image of a golden calf.  The Israelites forgot their promise to follow the Lord’s commands.  They bowed down to an image that was not God.  They worshipped something made out of their discarded jewelry, something made from human hands, something that didn’t ask them to wait.

Their god was something they could understand.  Their god was something they could control.  Their god was an easy god to follow.

The Israelites didn’t know all of the things the Lord had to tell Moses, about the precise details involved in the building of His temple, about the instructions in making all the various items that went inside His temple, about the rituals involved when a sinful people approach a holy God.  Had they known, they might have been more willing to wait.  God had much to say to Moses, and that took time.  Forty days and nights, that was a more than reasonable amount of time.  But their understanding of the situation wasn’t important; God wanted their trust.

And waiting always involves trust.

And trust is hard, just as waiting is hard.  Even after God had parted the seas and led His people out of captivity, even after He had fed them manna and quail in the wilderness, the Israelites found it hard to trust.  They found it hard to wait.  And they succumbed to their fears--the fears of not being in control, the fears of not knowing and understanding, the fears that following God just wasn't supposed to be easy.

 And the Israelites sinned.

And when Moses did come down from that mountain, he burned the golden calf. He crushed the ashes into powder. He sprinkled the powder on the water. He made the Israelites drink it. They had to drink their sin.

Now, I’ve never made an idol out of gold.  I’ve never taken off my jewelry, melted it down, and made a cow out of it.  I’ve never worshipped a piece of wood or a statue.  I’ve never been foolish enough to believe that a figurine could be worthy of my worship.

But there have been many times when I’ve grown tired of waiting for the Lord to move in my life.  There have been times when I’ve grown tired of trusting when He has said to trust, waiting when He’s said to wait.  There have been times when I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and try to do things myself.  There have been times when I’ve tried to make myself into a god, tricking myself into believing that I have control.

There have been times when I’ve made gods out of my friends, unreasonably expecting them to understand me or be able to help me in ways that only God can.  And I frustrate those friendships.

There have been times when I’ve tried to use my own efforts to force a situation to work in the way I want it to, instead of waiting for God to move in His way and time.  And I frustrate the situation.

There have been times when I’ve tried to manipulate God by throwing a tantrum, instead of trusting, obeying, waiting…and ultimately resting in Him.  And I’m just grateful I can’t really frustrate God, just myself.

But, oh, there have been times when I’ve had to drink up those ashes of my sin.

Waiting isn’t easy.  Trust isn't easy.

Following a God whose ways are not our ways--that's also not easy.

But Moses is going to come down from that mountain.

God is going to come through.

We don’t need to fashion gods for ourselves.  We don’t need to try to gain control.

Because the Lord is the God who goes before us.

Sometimes we just have to wait a little while for Him to move…

…and sometimes we have to trust.

Impulsively Hesitant

It's hard to know what to do sometimes.  As a fairly impulsive person who knows she is fairly impulsive, sometimes when there is something I get the inclination to do, I have to pull the reins, slow myself down, and stop to think before I act.  Sometimes this means I never act at all, and sometimes that's a good thing.

But I also happen to be a fairly hesitant person when it comes to trying new things, and I also know that about myself.  Sometimes I have to take a flying leap and force myself to do something.  Sometimes I fall flat on my face, and sometimes that's also a good thing.

Balance is that dreaded word which signifies a concept that I'm just not very good at.  I can be impulsive.  I can be hesitant.  Is it possible to be hesitantly impulsive or impulsively hesitant?

It's only been a couple of days since I started asking for feedback about an idea.  I guess I haven't given it much time, but the response was underwhelming.  In fact, it was a little depressing.  About five people ever got back to me about it at all.  Including my mom, who is awesome, but...she's my mom.  And I do plan on giving it a little more time, but I don't want to keep posting links about it on facebook when it's apparent that people don't care.  But seriously, I'd rather people just come right out and say, "Ruth, your idea is stupid and no one cares," than to just ignore me and hope I'll go away.  I mean, I'm trying to gauge how much people would be interested in my idea.  I'm trying to see if there's a need for it.  So while I'd prefer a direct response, maybe the answer to those questions is: it's not even an intriguing enough idea to capture people's attention, so get over it.

So if my idea is THAT ignorable, I should lean towards being hesitant to act on it.  Yet I have to admit that the impulsive part of me wants to just go ahead and start a new blog focusing on this idea, asking questions, hoping that I'll slowly start to amass a following. 

And really, the only risk involved there is that no one will ever read the new blog.  The risk is that I'll continue to be ignored.  The blog and my idea could just result in one failure that few people will ever know about, but the problem is: I'll know about it.  And if that were my only concern, well, I guess I could live with it.  But I'm hesitant too because I'm sick of starting projects and then seeing them fizzle down to nothing.  And I'm afraid that I might not have the endurance to follow this spark of an idea through to the end--especially if I don't have people who are backing me up.  And right now, it doesn't look like I have many people backing me up.  I'm appreciative of those who have given support (yes, you too, mom), but right now it's not encouraging.  And I don't want to start something else I don't finish. 

I haven't made any decisions.  I really want to try this, just to see what happens.  That's the impulsive part of me.  But I'm afraid it will start in a glorious fire that will soon fizzle down to a dying ember.  That's the hesitant side of me.  So I'm going with another option.

Prayer.  Lately, my prayer life has been good.  It's amazing, first of all, that sinful people even have access to something as incredible as prayer.  We get to talk to God.  We get to talk to a holy, righteous, good God.  We should not have that opportunity.  It's amazing, second, that God has everything we need.  He's the King of Kings.  We can ask Him for what we need, and He will provide what we need.  That doesn't mean that if I ask God for a football or even something more serious like a husband, I'm going to get it.  What it does mean is that God will provide for me according to what I need and according to His purposes for me.  And prayer is amazing also because God actually desires our prayer.  He longs for us to come to Him with our needs.  He longs to give us what we need.  He delights in us.  So I can pray fervently about this situation.  I'm learning not to ask God so much for His guidance as I ask Him for trust in the midst of situations I don't understand.  Sometimes I'm more eager to seek God's direction than I am to seek His face, and that's one of those sneakier forms of idolatry.

The other day, when praying, I had a really great moment.  I prayed, "Lord, all you really want from us is us.  You just want us.  And the remarkable thing about that is that we're not really giving anything up, because You're giving us Yourself.  And just between You and me, God, I really think we're getting the much better end of that deal."

And we are. 

There's no reason to worry.  Some things work themselves out.  Waiting and trusting are hard sometimes, but I think that's the only way an impulsively hesitant person like me can figure out obedience.