You Really Love Me Like You Say You Do

Last week and this week, I’ve been working on a fun project for the fall! At St. John’s our children, youth, and adult Sunday school classes will all be focusing on lessons based on the lectionary! Hopefully, this will facilitate thought and discussion beyond Sunday morning amongst the families that attend Sunday school and worship at St. John’s! In fact, the staff has chosen a particular passage from the lectionary to focus on in worship and Sunday school each week so that we are all on the same page! So, I am creating high school Sunday school lessons based on those lectionary choices.

One of the lesson’s we will be studying in September comes from Exodus 17:1-7. In this piece of Scripture, the Israelites are in the desert under the leadership of the Moses. They are constantly moving and wandering around when God orders them to do so. And, it seems to me that when God orders them to move, they do, but they sure are grumpy about it! Eventually, they come to camp at a place called Rephidim. But, upon arrival there, they discover a problem. There is no water and they are thirsty!

Naturally, they go to their leader, Moses, and do the complaing! But, they do more than complain. It seems to me, they test God and even take it as far as threatening to stone Moses if he doesn’t get them some water. Rephidim, was likely one of their last stops on the journey to the Promised Land, so maybe the Israelistes were extra grumpy because they were sick of being in the wilderness and were ready to be settled in one place. Nonetheless, how could they threaten to kill Moses?!

So, poor Moses is at his wits end, I can imagine! He prays and God sends him (and some leaders) ahead of the group to “the rock” at Mt. Sinai. God tells Moses to strike the rock with a stick and water will pour out. Well guess what! When Moses goes ahead, struck the rock with his stick, water poured out and the people drank.

The message seems pretty simple to me. The Israelites don’t trust God enough to be confident that God will provide for their need. They take matters into their own hands and don’t care what they have to do to “fix” the situation (even if it means stoning Moses to death).

In reading other passages from Exodus, it is like the Israelites are on this journey in the desert and when God orders them to move to a new place they go … albeit complaining the whole way. And then they get caught up in their misery and forget that God loves them, is in control and has greater purpose and reason for taking them places on the journey ... even if those places are miserable!

Aren’t we like that too? We sometimes tend to not trust in God’s greater plan for our lives just because things get a little uncomfortable (i.e. we get thirsty). Or, maybe you are like me, I pray and “give it to God” (whatever my issue is) but then I take it back from God when God doesn’t move fast enough for me to make my issue better.

Why do we constantly test God and require God to prove Gods-self to us? When are our blessings enough? When will we open our eyes and hearts to God’s purpose and plan and keep them open even if it takes some time to see the reasons?

On the other hand, God is patient and it is good to know that time after time, God shows up and answers our tests! It’s just like with the Israelites. Right after this passage from chapter 7, the Israelites have to fight the Amalekites. In the end, God provided and they won the battle. It seems to me that God was screaming, loudly – TRUST IN ME – throughout the whole battle! You see, whenever Moses would invoke God’s presence (by raising his arms and the stick that he struck the rock with for water), the Israelites got ahead in the battle and did well. But when Moses would lower his arms, they would begin to be defeated. If that is not God reminding us God is large and in charge, I don’t know what is!

The Israelites test God over and over while they are in the wilderness and God shows up time after time. We test God over and over in our lives and God shows up time after time … whether we catch it or not!

The stick that these passages reference seems to be a clear metaphor for the power of God and a reminder that God is in control! So many times as teens and even as adults, we miss the awesomeness of the moments to enjoy God‘s power and might AND ability to be in control. This is because we are so busy testing God, complaining, and/or being grumpy about being thirsty (our trying situations). We forget how much God loves us. So, it seems pretty simple to me. All we have to do is to learn to stop testing God and abide in that love.

I think this Paul Colman song really speaks to how we can learn to stop testing God and questioning. It requires us to whole-heartedly know that God is truly the one thing we can depend on and that we don’t have to question. Praise God! “You really love me like You say You do!” (My favorite line from the song)