The LORD said to Moses, "Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink." Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:5,6
God liberated the Israelites. They crossed through the water, and were safely out of reach of Pharaoh's armies. “Now,” they thought, “we can enter the Promised Land and live out our lives in ease.” But they soon discovered that freedom does not come that easily. They could not find water in the desert, and they became desperate. They were ready to forsake Yahweh and Moses. They even wanted to return to bondage in Egypt.
But God had not abandoned his people. He was standing on that rock when Moses struck it with his staff. The water came forth in a torrent. Maybe now things have turned around for the better. Salvation has come in the form of water from a rock. Now they knew that God was with them. But they still had a long way to go. Forty more years they had to wander in that wilderness before they could enter their rest. No! Salvation and freedom are not cheap. Grace is very costly.
Our lives are lived out with all the pain and suffering that comes with the human condition. In desperation we cry out because of the pain. We want things to be better. We want everything to turn out right. But that is not the way it works. Is God really here with us? Why doesn't he just make it go away? Is God too weak to fix it? No, it is not God's weakness that causes us to suffer. It is not because he does not love us. We simply suffer because that is part of the human condition.
Like the Israelites, we try to put God to the test. We try to define how God should go about relieving our suffering. God will not interfere with our freedom. He will not send us back to Pharaoh. But God is still standing on the rock. If we strike the rock boldly, and put our lives in God's hands, his love and grace will gush forth from that rock in a mighty torrent. It might not come in the form we seek, but it will come. His living water is our salvation. We may not get what we want, but He will set our feet on a firm path and lead us into the Promised Land. There we will lie down in green pastures by the still waters and we will find rest.
Prayer: Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy, never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it, mount of God's unchanging love. Amen