Self-examination: Pride (Striking the Rock)

I'm reading a book right now that has me re-examining my life as a Christian quite a bit. It is full of little Truths that when I truly look at my life, I'm realizing that I've not been living my life as much for the Lord as I might have once imagined. I'm beginning to look deeply within myself at my motives, my priorities, my focus and I'm not always very happy with what I see. But the good news is I know as the Lord reveals these things to me I can take them to Him and He will heal me.

So, here is the most recent self-examination:

Numbers 20:1 - 13 tells about how the Israelites arrived at the Desert of Zin which is where Miriam died and was buried. Once again as had happened several times during their wanderings, there was no water and the Israelites began to complain. Moses and Aaron went to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and the Lord spoke to them. He was very clear in His directions.

"Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock from the community so they and their livestock can drink." (emphasis added - Numbers 20:8)

Moses gathered the Israelites, but instead of just speaking to the rock, he took the staff and struck the rock. Not once, but twice. The Lord cause water to pour forth as He had promised, but Moses actions had consequences.

"Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them." (Numbers 20:12)

In the past I've read this and just not gotten it. I guess I've been under the assumption that Moses struck the rock out of anger because he was so sick and tired of the Israelites complaining. But the Lord's response leads me to wonder if that was not the true reason for Moses actions. That to root of that action was something much deeper. Regardless, I can only imagine the despair that must have filled Moses when he learned his actions were going to keep him from the Promised Land.

The book I'm reading speaks of this incident and relates it to our lives as Christians in today's world.

"The body of Christ today is encouraged to search the Scriptures for desired promises, hold those Scriptures up to God and demand fulfillment. This could be the ultimate demonstration of the pride of man. This uses God's authority and principles for self-promotion! The Lord wants us to learn to use the rod - but for His purposes. When pride (self-centeredness) enters into spiritual authority, we are in grave danger. He is seeking those who "tremble at His word" to be His habitation
(Isaiah 66:1-2). We must treat Him as holy or we, like Moses, may find ourselves banned from the promised land."
(There Were Two Trees in the Garden by Rick Joyner)

When I read this the first time I was struck with a holy fear. Have I been doing this in my life? Moses was described as the most humble man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3). If this humblest man on the earth can fall victim to pride and self-centeredness, someone who has basked in the glory of the Lord to the extent that he had to wear a veil on his face, what makes me think that I won't fall in the same way?

This is why it is so extremely important for me to continue to ask the Lord to show me areas of my life where pride is taking root (or already has) and to ask Him to pull out these things from my life. It is only through Him and by His power that this can be done. The process of pulling these "weeds" out of my life may be painful at times, but being told by the Lord that I won't see the promised land because I've not honored Him as holy is far worse.

Hatred & Bitterness

It is amazing the things God uses to transform us into His image, things He uses to bring Himself Glory.

Yesterday, one of my posts from a couple weeks back was stumbled upon by someone who took great offense to it. This person posted a comment on a forum linking to my post which resulted in increasing my blog traffic over the past two days from approx. 20 unique hits a day to over 150 a day. This also resulted in what has probably been the most comments on any single post for me. Unfortunately these posts not only disagreed with me - they were quite nasty and hateful about it.

One cool thing about the internet and blogs is all the tools you can use, including one that can tell you where visitors are coming from when they visit your blog. In this way I was able to find the post that was directing all this traffic to me and I read the comments that had been left in response to that posting (7 pages at that time).

My first reaction was to be angry (the comments on my blog were bad, but these were appalling and many involved my daughter) however as I read the Lord impressed something on my heart. I began to feel compassion on these individuals because as I read further I began to see the hatred and bitterness behind the comments. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone to think I'm something I'm not - I was still filled with anger of my own because of the attacks on myself, my family and my beliefs - but I started to see past those feelings.

So last night I chose to shut down my computer and pray for these individuals. God tells us to pray for our enemies, so I chose obedience. I'm not saying it was easy or that I was all that happy about it, but I figured obedience whether I feel it or not was the first step. I prayed for them and asked the Lord to soften my heart as well. He did start to do this -but He did even more.

As I started to pray for them He started to reveal to me that it was not all that long ago that I was filled with hate and bitterness. I was filled with pride - considering that I was correct in all of my beliefs no matter what - so much so that I was not even willing to accept discipline and correction from the Lord. At this point I began to weep and repent for this past sin.

But the Lord was not done. As I began to admit to Him these things from my past, He began to show me that although I don't live a life necessarily filled with hatred and bitterness any longer - I do still have deep dark places in my heart that harbor these feelings. They are buried deep and don't show themselves all the time, but they are still there. And He showed me two people in particular where I have allowed these feelings rule my heart and mind. And in some cases my tongue. I've justified these because these people have hurt me, they have offended me, they have tread on my rights.

But in the Kingdom of God these things do not matter. If God held these things against us, He never would have offered His gift of Love to us. What these individuals have done to me is nothing compared to the offenses I have committed against my Lord. Yet He has forgiven me and asks me to forgive others as He has forgiven me. He has loved me regardless of what I've done and asks me to do the same to others.

This started out as individuals who disagreed with my stand for God's Truth attacking me, but ended with God using it to reveal to me some ugliness in my own life. As much as I hate to see that within myself, I have chosen to follow Jesus and that means He will continue to guide me and show me areas in my life that I need to address in order to become more like Him. Therefore, today I praise Him for His mercy and grace. I praise Him because He loves me just the way I am, yet He wants to transform me into something even better if I am willing. I praise Him because He has turned what others meant for evil into something wonderful and good that will bring Him glory.