March 13th blog post

Becoming the Master Seeker in the Game of Hide and Seek

 

When I hear someone in my family utter the words, "I can't find….(my wallet, my school book, my shoes…) I have an immediate response,  "Did you pray?"  I usually get an eye roll followed by a deep sigh that muffles out a hushed response, "no."  I will stop and pray and join in the seeking.  Know what?  9.5 times out of 10 (no exaggeration) God leads us right to the place where we need to be in order to find what is missing.  Everyone is elated and thanking God for helping us find what we needed.

 

My problem is that it is easy for me to trust God with missing objects and to speak to him about the need to find them than it is for me to trust him whole heartedly with bigger issues, especially bigger relationship issue within my family, friends or work environments.

 

As a wife and stay at home mom for the past 23 years I have taken seriously my role as both.  I have always seen part of my job as listening, watching, and getting to know my family as best I can.  What makes them angry, happy, sad, frustrated, offended, hurt, or excited?  How do they respond best to good news, bad news, advice or criticism?  It helps me to think about how to approach them and help them when there is a need, especially a relational need.  But this is where my problem becomes dangerous.  I pray and tell God all about the relationship issue that is going on and I lay out the details of my findings about both parties (sometimes I am one of them) and I do ask the Lord to help each party see their short comings, flaws, and to see the needs of the other.  I end by asking the Lord to help heal and grow the relationship.  But I don't end there.  No, unfortunately I am armed with too much information, a deep desire for restoration, and a mouth that has direct access to one of the offender's ears.  I typically gather to myself the one or ones with the relationship need and I share my findings with them, over an extended amount of time, and I leave God to use my unasked for help to bring about the healing that is needed.  The thing is, I walk away feeling good that I just emptied myself of my thoughts and feelings but I dumped them on the listener leaving them to have to dig out of my informational vomit.  They surely heard me but I have not left much room for them to hear the Lord.

 

So, in today's OT reading I really could relate to Moses.  He was in a relationship issue with the people of Israel, his family.  They had directly blamed him for their current situation and grumbled that they had no water.  Moses did as he always does; he went to the Lord and fell flat on his face, perhaps from emotion exhaustion.  God did not give a stern warning for the people this time but seemed to show his compassion and understanding for their need of water.  He told Moses to take his staff, gather the people, and go to the rock (the one God pointed out) and to speak to the ROCK and God would provide for the need.  But Moses seemed to suffer from a similar issue as myself, he had a mouth and something to say so rather then speak to the rock he spoke to the people, he called them rebels and he took the credit for bringing about the water, "must we (he and Aaron) bring you water out of this rock?" (Numbers 20:10)  Then he struck the rock, not once but twice.  God still provided the solution but not how he intended, not how he desired, not in his glory but through Moses glory.

 

God wanted to use Moses but not to berate the people, not to beat them with words, not to throw their sin at them but to use him to help direct the people, their trust and hope toward the Lord who is always faithful to provide, even providing for the relational droughts that can sometimes plague our lives.  When we step in and take the lead for God we rob those we love from truly seeing God work in and through their lives.  We steal their opportunity for growth in their faith and from experiencing God's provision, which helps them to have greater hope and trust in future circumstances. 

 

I don't want to beat those I love and care about with my words in order to try and see results in a situation.  I want to trust the Lord to work in my heart and the hearts of those I love.  I want to remember that God does call me to gather people to me, not to talk at them, but to talk to the solution, talk to God and direct all our hearts and minds to the one who is ready to flood our lives with the good things we need.  He is ready and willing to restore what was lost and is needed.  We need to be ready to let him.