Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank. Numbers 20:11 NASB
Before my wedding I used to watch those wedding shows. I laughed at the couples and their mishaps. How could some people be so demanding? I would never act like that. Is it really that serious? It’s easy to live in hypothetical world. The emotional displays I saw on TV began to make sense as my fiancée and I started planning our wedding. Weddings can stir up strong feelings, especially during those pre-wedding arguments.
We had one of those “discussions” on the weekend of the wedding. A short time after my bride to be and I argued, I took a walk and hurled my phone towards the side of a building. The moment I released the $200 device from my hand I wanted to freeze time but it was too late. Modern technology met old school brick. The brick wall proved to be the victor. To make it worse I didn’t buy the protection plan for the phone. On the wedding day everyone was taking snapshots – with their phones. I wanted to join in and catch some memories but I was phoneless. My emotional outburst had caused me to miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity.
There was no water where in Kadesh and the requests to go back to Egypt came pouring in, again. God had solved a previous water problem and surely He could do it again, right? The last time the people needed to be hydrated (Exodus 17) Moses was instructed to strike a rock. Moses hits. Water comes out. The people are refreshed. This time God told Moses to speak to the rock. Speak not strike. Speak not swing at. Speak not hurl something toward.
Moses could take it no longer. The people had given him a hard time for years. Even now after seeing all the miracles of God they complained when things didn’t go as they expected. (Yep that sounds like me). Often in the narrative we see Moses pleading for the people. He reasons with them and prays to God on their behalf. There aren’t many occasions where Moses is described as being upset. Breaking the tablets of stone was another clearly upset moment. This time in his anger Moses strikes the rock. Water still proceeds forth but he had clearly disobeyed God’s directive. The punishment is pronounced quickly. Disobedience caused Moses to miss out on the Promised Land. Hitting instead of speaking resulted in being disqualified to enter the land of milk and honey.
Think about your emotions. Are they causing you to lose friends, jobs or credibility? Are they making you difficult to be around or hard to live with? Do they cause you to do things that you later regret? Ask the Holy Spirit to heal and bless you emotionally. Without the Spirit guiding our emotions we take the chance of missing out on what God has planned for us.
Good post. Emotions are something that is not talk about enough. How do we balance expressing the. Without having them overwhelm us?
Being open to discussing them is a good place to start. Understanding the wide variety of emotions is key. For example when you say that you’re mad does that mean upset, irritated, annoyed – we often say mad because we have a limited emotional vocabulary.