Trusting Enough
By Elin
Henderson
“But the LORD said to Moses and
Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust Me enough to demonstrate my holiness
to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land’...”
This was indeed a sad day for Moses
and Aaron. After all they had been through, leading this group of wayward
Israelites through a tiresome wilderness for years on end, right at the end,
they fail. God had instructed Moses to speak to the rock here in Numbers 20 and
water would come out. Moses allowed frustration and anger towards the people to
cloud his vision. Instead of trusting God with not only the water, but also the
wayward hearts of the Israelites, he lashed out and disobeyed the Lord. This
was Moses, mind you! The “friend of God”! The one who had seen God perform
miracle after miracle. He had walked with God and received the Ten Commandments
straight from God Himself! What happened?
Before we start judging poor Moses
too harshly, we need to look no further then within our own hearts to find his
likeness! How often our trust, like Moses’, isn’t enough. God is big, but is He
THAT big?? We may have walked with Him for many
years and experienced His deliverance time and time again, seen His miraculous
works in our lives and the lives of others, but working day in and day out with
“God’s people,” we become frustrated and lose sight of Him! It becomes easier
to lash out than to trust that God will not only work in the SITUATION, but
also in the HEARTS of those people we are working with!
Sometimes the consequences of such
decisions can be pretty serious. Moses lost out on entering the Promised Land. For
us, it could be the loss of an opportunity to speak into someone’s life or a
chance to share the gospel with someone.
Oh, God, keep us from the lie of
believing that You are not enough! Keep us ever aware of our inadequacy, and
even more aware of YOUR adequacy to deal with not only challenging
circumstances, but also challenging people. May we trust enough!
GOING
DEEPER:
1.
Are you facing any challenging circumstances
and people right now? How can you trust God to be enough in this?
2.
What safeguards
can you set up in your heart and mind that, when triggered, help you realize
that your trust is faltering?
FURTHER
READING:
Oakwood’s missionaries Elin
Henderson (a registered nurse) and her husband Phil serve as church planters
with Ethnos 360 in Mozambique, Africa. Elin is mother to seventeen-year-old
Callie and fifteen-year-old Elias.
