March 30 2006

Ex 32:7-14 The LORD said to Moses,“Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” The LORD said to Moses, “I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.” But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, “Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Why should the Egyptians say,‘With evil intent he brought them out,that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth’?Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying,‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.’” So the LORD relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.

Countless times I have recalled this particular part of Scripture when something unfortunate or an injustice occurs. I think "these are a stiff necked people." It somehow is incredibly comforting to have a time in the story of salvation when God has lost patience with the people of God. God who is all knowing and kind and merciful can even be to the point of questioning the point in showing compassion yet again to a people who have yet again turned away from God. Even God can have a time when "enough is enough" ...I find this amazing and encouraging.

It is Moses who has also been wronged by the acts of the people and begs God to forgive again these foolish people and remember the covenant. It was a matter of the people of Israel having lost any patience or trust in God while waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain while in the presence of God. What were they thinking?

What am I thinking when I think I have to do something right away? Some things are urgent and some are only perceived as urgent and the need to act is more driven by a selfish internal need than the actual reality of the moment. As some people say there is my time and there is God's time and all things will work out in God's time. Faith and confidence in the protection and love of God are at the core of the ability to wait for God's word.