There are times that things are going along just as they normally would when all of a sudden, God throws a monkey wrench in the works and things change and become different than what we are accustomed to. Repetition and familiarity can become comfortable to us and it can lead to something dangerous... we stop listening to and depending on God. We start thinking that we know this stuff and we can handle it. That, my friend, is a dangerous place to be. There is a story in the Bible when Moses is leading the children of Israel in the wilderness where this scenario plays out and shows us what can happen. In this story, we have to imagine that this was a very familiar situation with the Israelites complaining about being thirsty. I mean when you have this massive amount of people wandering through the wilderness, thirst had to be a common complaint, so using our minds we can imagine that Moses and God had had this conversation many times beforehand. Enter the monkey wrench. The Lord shook things up and asked Moses to do something different. This time, rather than hitting the rock as he had done in the past, God told Moses to speak to it. Examining this story a bit, we find that Moses is frustrated and angry with the people. His anger led him to react contrary to the voice of God and he hit the rock... both because he was familiar with that being "the way we always did it before" and because he was angry. His disobedience cost him dearly. He was denied the very thing that he had sought after for years! In Numbers 20:12 we read where God said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” Notice, God's promise was fulfilled to the children of Israel... but not to those who disobeyed. We really don't know just what was going on in the mind of Moses, but whether from doubt, fear, or sheer obstinacy and self-reliance, Moses chose to rely on that which was familiar, and he missed out on entering the land God had promised to His people.
There is a clear message and lesson in this story for all of us. Although God is constant, His world is always changing. This world is filled with a vast variety of different types and sorts of people. Even in our own Nation, things have changed greatly over the last 150 years and in order for God to redeem and restore this world, God is frequently doing something new and different that just might require you and I to change our way of thinking and our methods. It may be so radically different and unfamiliar that it is uncomfortable for us. It might mean we need to change up our worship service a bit, or the manner in which we deliver the message. I might mean we need to change the way the building looks, or (Heaven forbid) change the style of music we play and sing in worship. I hear you... it is sometimes VERY uncomfortable and at times it may feel like our world is being turned upside down because of the changes... but listen to me ...yesterday’s victories will never win today’s battles! What many are attempting to do, dragging today's generation backward into they style and format we were accustomed to 40-50 years ago is akin to trying to keep up with a computer with a slide rule! (I know, some of you don't even know what a slide rule is! That's one in the picture above.) We have to shift and adapt to reach the changing world and culture of our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The message never changes, but the method of delivering it must... or we become just another number of the statistical chart of churches closing in America. A word of warning to some who think they are more holy than others because they refuse to change... you are guilty of hitting the rock!
No comments:
Post a Comment