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Ex. 17
It’s easy to read the Israelite’s story and shake your head, click your tongue, point your finger, and declare how unfathomably stubborn and stupid they were. But the truth is that the Israelites were human; just as human as the rest of us. Which means that we are equally subject to the same stupidity and stubbornness that they so brilliantly displayed for us. God didn’t give us their story so that we could judge them. He gave it to us so that we could learn about our own human nature and the problem it causes. And He gave it to us so that we could learn about Him and what He does for us.
The very human behavior I see in the Israelites this morning, then, is the tendency to question if God is still present whenever things get difficult or go contrary to our desire. And the truth I see about God is that His presence is independent of our circumstances. Thus the question is, do we trust Him? Do we believe that He is present even when our senses can’t tell it? And do we let that belief guide our heart and dictate our behavior?
Luke 20
The Jewish leaders told Jesus that they didn’t know if the baptism of John came from heaven or from man. Truthfully, though, they did know. They just didn’t want to accept the truth. And Jesus knew that if they refused to accept the truth about John, they certainly weren’t going to accept the truth about Him. Again, rather than pointing a condemning finger at those hard-hearted Jewish leaders, I need to learn from them. So I learn that human pride resists truth. And I learn that we can’t accept Jesus if we can’t accept truth, because He is The Truth. That’s why it’s so critical to watch out for pride in our hearts more diligently than we watch for weeds in our garden bed and kill it before it has a chance to take root and spread.
Job 35
Interestingly, I see the same truths about human nature that I just expressed from the previous two passages here in Elihu’s speech. He noted what the Israelites demonstrated for us. People cry out for God when things get hard, but nobody questions where He is when they enjoy His blessings. So we see that Job, even though he never turned away from God, made the same mistake as the Israelites. He failed to trust that God was still present with him in his suffering. Elihu also noted what we saw with Jesus and the Jewish leaders. He said, “There they cry out, but He does not answer because of the pride of evil men.” (Job 35:12). No point giving an answer to someone who isn’t ready to listen to it.
Elihu further notes some truths about God and our relationship to Him. The first is that nothing we do changes anything about God. He is, always has been, and always will be God, no matter what. The second is that God doesn’t operate on our schedule. Elihu told Job, “The case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!” (Job 35:14b). Our wait does not negate God’s care or concern for the righteous or His justice for the wicked. The takeaway for me in all of this is the importance of patiently trusting in God’s unseen truth because what we see from our human perspective so often deceives us.