I could not believe how Moses argued with God. Mike and I are doing our churchwide read the Bible in a year and I have learned so much. The Lord told Moses these people had treated Him with contempt and never believed Him or His miracles. Numbers 14: 12, "I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they."
In Numbers 14: 15-19, Moses replied to the Lord, "If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, 'The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
I was surprised that Moses argued, debated, suggested, with God. That is God and He knows best. Isn't that just like us? It is me. I never thought about it but I am always arguing, debating and suggesting things to God. And Jill always makes suggestions as if He needs my help. God even gave me some examples of my behavior just in the week leading up to Sarah's surgery! I didn't even realize I was arguing.
God wants us to be obedient but He also wants a relationship with us. He wants discussion about His actions and decisions. That is exactly what Moses did. His intimate discussions with God made him more of a friend to God.
Maybe I need to be more like Moses because my God rules with mercy and compassion. He knows my heart and knows my needs. I love Leonard Ravenhill's quote, "Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way."
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