Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!” But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb. Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them? (9-11)
The more I age the worse my memory becomes. Of course, I can remember the most amazing or most traumatic experiences of my life, but it is remembering what I did yesterday that is often the challenge. 😊 None of us want to suffer from memory loss, and so many times we experience amazing things and do the very best we can to cling to those memories because they are so important to us. We take pictures and videos of our vacations, our weddings, and our happiest moments because we want to go back and treasure them someday. We know that over time things begin to fade, and no matter what we do we can’t help that.
A certain amount of memory loss is normal over time. Yet, some things never leave you. Some things make an indelible impression on your life and forever shape how you look at the world. This was the reason for God’s anger with His people. The issue was not that they had forgotten all that He had done for them by rescuing them from Egypt and bringing them safely through the wilderness. Oh, they remembered well, but they still chose to doubt His goodness and despair over their problems in the very face of His complete faithfulness. The writer of Hebrews tells us “without faith it is impossible to please God.” God considered their lack of faith in the face of all He had done for them as utter “contempt.”
How many times has God been faithful in your life? How many times has He moved mountains, done the unexpected, and saved the day? It is probably more times than you can count. So why in the light of a history of faithfulness in our lives do we still succumb to doubt and despair? How long will it take us to learn the lesson that we must get our eyes off of our problems and obstacles and onto our God? What we don’t see is more real than what we do see. We don’t need to fear anything because the Lord is with us. No matter how it might look to you today, God has a plan and He has an answer and you must lean into Him by faith. Anything less isn’t just a lack of faith, it is actually treating Him with contempt.
