And the Lord said to Moses,
"How long will these people
treat me with contempt?"
Numbers 14:11
What a sad phrase.
But it wasn't just the Israelites who wandered about the Wilderness of Sin and treated God with contempt. Too much of our current world is wondering about in the wilderness of sin too. And you and me -- if we're honest -- find that we're too often camping out on the desert's dry and dusty outskirts.
As I read this, I can also imagine Jesus -- when he was whipped and stripped and hammered to the cross -- saying the exact same thing as God did in that ancient wilderness: "How long will these people treat me with contempt?"
But lest we hopelessly despair, we must also remember this same Jesus making one more important statement during those dark hours: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
That is God's heart. Just a few verses from here, we are reminded that "18 the Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion." Indeed, thank God we have a shepherd who is "[God is] gracious ...and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing" (Jonah 4:2).
In Christ's Love,
a guy who's thankful and amazed
(I've crossed my Lord too many times
and yet is he still bore a cross for me)
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