In Good Company

Moses is just fascinating me lately.  Here’s a guy who survived a holocaust at his birth by being miraculously hidden in some river weeds.  He grows up in Pharaoh's household and then identifies with his people, the Hebrews, and begins to be treated like they were – slaves.  Oh, he kills a guy.  Then flees to a distant land and gets married.  While he is there, God meets him in a burning bush and tells him that he (Moses) is His (God’s) chosen instrument to make His Name great among the Egyptians.  Who comes up with these journeys?!

Fast Forward to after God powerfully delivers the Israelites out of Egypt… (btw, here’s a thought… the Red Sea isn’t a barrier to getting out of Egypt. There are tons of land routes!  Jacob’s sons went between Egypt and Canaan a few times without ever having to cross this path.  God literally led them to this place where only His Power could save them…  whoa.)

Exodus 17.  The Israelites had grown to a group of about 1 million strong… and Moses was the leader of this crew!  So, picture this, 1 million people in a hot, dusty, sticky, shadeless desert. Oh but it gets better: They have wives, children and livestock too. So 1 million people plus families and livestock in a desert wilderness.

Now, sometimes it’s hard to lead people even when times are good, right? Moses had 1 million+ people following him in a desert.  The end of Exodus 17:1 introduces the obvious problem here: “but there was no water for the people to drink.” I mean, wouldn’t a “good” leader sort of expect this and plan ahead?  It appears that’s what the people of Israel thought… verse 2 Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”  Dude, you brought us here – where’s the water?!  (For those of you who wondered, like me, if a generation had passed or died off since the Rea Sea crossing – no way, that was like a month ago!)

It’s evident as you continue reading in chapter 17 of Exodus that Moses is becoming frustrated. (Like in verse 4) But, as God often, nay ALWAYS, does, He’s got this.  He instructs Moses to strike a stone and makes water flow from it for the people to drink.  Deliverance. Again. How good is God!

And so we see this pattern that tends to emerge… in my life too… and most likely in yours… of God delivering us from death, hunger, cold, loneliness, fill in your blank, and then we grumble and wonder if He’s really with us, only to have him deliver us again.  And this cycle of deliverance/grumble/deliverance continually peppers our journeys.  

It’s beneficial for me to see that we are in good company with God’s chosen people!

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Corinthians 15:57