Numbers 20:7-12 NKJV – Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals.” So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as He commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
Moses strikes the rock with his rod
This passage of Scripture always amazes me. Here was Moses, a man who God described in Numbers 12:8 as someone who He spoke with mouth to mouth clearly, and not in riddles, and who beheld the form of the Lord. Yet this same Moses displeased God by striking the rock and not speaking to it as God had commanded. What went wrong? Did Moses hear God wrong? How could he possibly have heard God wrong when God spoke to him so clearly and not in riddles? I don’t believe he did.
What happened was that Moses placed more trust in the rod than he did in God. Since Egypt, the rod had become a symbol of God’s power to Moses. It had turned the River Nile to blood, it had parted the Red Sea and, when held high in Moses’s hands it had helped Israel to defeat the Amalekites among other things. Moses heard “take the rod” and “speak to the rock” and missed that God was doing a new thing. God wanted to prove to Israel that He was the source of the miracles and not the rod. By striking the rock, Moses dishonored God in the sight of Israel and caused him and Aaron to miss their inheritance in the Promised Land.
Sounds harsh? It isn’t really. Especially not once we understand that Moses missed a fundamental lesson which would have been essential to leading the people into the new place God had called them to. God was ready to establish a new thing, a new order and wanted to break the people of Israel away from the old way and familiar mindsets. He was ready to reveal a new side to Himself and the way in which He works – but they missed it.
We often do the same thing. We place more trust in how God does things or how He worked in the past and put God in a box due to our limited understanding of who God is. So if during the singing of a particular worship song God’s glory fell, we try to recreate it again with the same song. If someone was healed by us laying hands on them all the time we might be skeptical if we hear God say to tell the person to turn around three times to receive their healing.
The move of God is not a scientific formula. It may never happen the same way twice. We must never restrict it to what we think it looks like or feels like, or how we think it works lest we should miss out on so much more of what God desires to do.
Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV – “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord . “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Several times in the Bible, both by the prophets in the Old Testament and by Jesus during His ministry, there was no particular way God did things. Naaman almost missed his healing because he thought that Elisha would have come to him and call on God to cure his leprosy instead of sending a messenger to tell him to go wash in the Jordan seven times.
Beloved, God will NOT share His glory with another (Isaiah 42:8). That is why He demands our total obedience and trust. If we don’t put our trust entirely in Him, our trust will quickly turn to things and not to Him. How can He prove Himself to be Jehovah Rapha our Healer if we place our trust in a particular way of healing? How can He prove Himself to be Jehovah Jireh our Provider if we place our trust in our monthly pay cheque? And how can He prove Himself to be Jehovah Shalom our Peace if we fix our eyes on what is happening in the world around us?
We must keep in the face of God and attune our ears to His voice continually so that we don’t miss when He is ready to do a new thing like Moses did.
Isaiah 43:18-19 NKJV – “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.”
By Samantha Calliste
