Lesson #16 - GOING PLACES, OR NOT

Lesson #16 - GOING PLACES, OR NOT (Continuing reflections on Moses and the Israelites and our St. Paul's community)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking hard about the answer to this question, “How do I know for sure that I’m doing the right thing, that I’m obeying God?” I’ve been wondering about that because as I reflect on the story of Moses and the Israelites, I am shocked and puzzled by the harsh reality of their lives: they wandered in the desert for 40 years.

Ugh. Wandering sounds a lot like being lost. Desert sounds barren, lonely, harsh, uncomfortable. 40 years sounds like a long, long time. It’s all the more dismaying when the facts are laid out plain: the desert was a little spit of land that could be walked across in 11 days.

The Israelites were in the desert more than 14,000 days. As a post on “Theology Web” explains: If the Israelites had traveled at the rate of only 1 mile per day for 5 days a week, they could have traveled from Egypt to China and back in 40 years and still had time for the occasional battle or other diversion.

So what were those Israelites doing all that time? Probably they were stationary for large chunks of time. Or they were going in circles, making camp at places where there was water, staying until food for their livestock ran out, and then moving on.

Scripture tells us that God kept them in the desert on purpose because of their disobedience and lack of faith. How? Did he mess with their ancient GPS coordinates by rearranging the stars they guided themselves by? Did he allow the flu bug to circulate through the camp so regularly that they had to keep resting and waiting for people to get better? Did he stir the fires of resentment and argument, keeping them at odds with the other nomadic tribes, who prevented them from taking direct routes across the desert?

But perhaps the more important question this: How do we avoid getting stuck in the desert? The Israelites certainly didn’t set out to be disobedient. We don’t set out to be disobedient. But somehow we, too, find ourselves wandering – sometimes for years – with our hearts aching for something more, something better, but not quite finding it. Existing, but not really living.

As a leader, of course, I can’t help worrying that it was at least partially Moses’ fault. Was he not showing them the way? Was something awry with his own internal compass? Certainly at one point, God told Moses he would be personally punished for not trusting in him (the water incident in Numbers 20, when the people said they were dying of thirst and Moses complained at God, too, fearing he wouldn’t provide for them).

Radical trust is what God requires of us. That’s hard. But I don’t want us all to be wandering the desert for 40 years, so I think I/we should do our best.

So now to tackle the next question: what does radical trust look like?

Faithfully,
Janet+