My Way

Have you ever encountered a stubborn, set in their ways, unbending, haughty and all knowing  negative grumbler? What a brick wall huh! If I could say there was one type of person that was the most difficult for me to communicate with it would be a stubborn grumbler. I'm very sure it was one of the most disdainful attitudes that even the Lord God had to deal with. Oh, and he dealt with them and it wasn't always pretty. When the children of Israel were grumbling and complaining in Numbers chapter 14, the Lord looked at their grumbling and complaining as contemptuous. They had forgotten all the wondrous miracles that the Lord had performed bringing them out of the land of Egypt such as the cloud in the daytime and the pillar of fire at night, the parting of the Red Sea, the raining of manna down from the sky and the striking of the rock that gave them water to drink. Still they grumbled and complained. Their sorry selves wanted to go back to Egypt where they said they 'Had it better'! So quickly we forget where we came from and what we are brought out of!   It's hard to imagine given so much again and again, in a very miraculous manner I might add, that they would still be so unhappy and ungrateful. You may think to yourself, " I would never complain if I saw the miraculous hand of God move like that on my behalf"! Really! Well. Let's just think about it for a minute, but just a minute because I don't want this to seem like a condemning rant to those of you reading this because it is not. You see, people are people the world around and we are all born with a sin nature and a perpensity to grumble and complain. But it's where the close walk with Our creator comes in and changes everything. You see when the Israelites grumbled and complained and the Lord was ready to strike them all dead, it was Moses who came to their defense. He pled for mercy for them and begged the Lord God to pardon them. They had an advocate, someone who stood up for them. I believe it was someone like Moses who had stood in the very presence of God and had himself been forgiven much, that showed his love and mercy towards the Israelites. Did they deserve to be pardoned? No! But God ended up pardoning them anyway ( Num 14:20)  but they still suffered the consequences of their stubborn grumbling actions. They were not allowed to enter the land of promise. Their children would after 40 years but none of the grumblers would get that beautiful promise. Here's an interesting side note for those who like a bit deeper thought process. In that particular chapter when it talks about "complaining" the Hebrew word for complaining means "lodging or to lodge". When they were grumbling and complaining they were in essence saying "I have reached my destination, I'm lodging here and I have no plans to go any further. This is as far as I wanna go"! Isn't that so true of the nature of grumblers and complainers. They sit down in their spots and take residence in their own opinions and self will and refuse to move from it. Hence the "stubborn" attitude. I have been met with people like that and I don't have to tell you that they can be unmovable in their own way. It does bring that song by 'ole blue eyes" himself, Frank Sinatra to mind, 'MY WAY'. A couple of verses go like this: " I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway, and more, much more than this, I did it MY WAY. . . . . To think I did all that and may I say, not in a shy way, oh no, oh no not me, I did it MY WAY".  What a thing to proclaim! Our way is never gonna work nearly as wonderfully as Gods way. When we get in close fellowship with our creator, like Moses, and sit and spend time in his presence, it can change us, it can turn our hearts of stubborn stone into hearts of flesh that are filled with mercy and love beyond our comprehension. And, when our stubborn hard and unchanging hearts take over, well, we have an advocate, his name is Jesus. He stood up for us and pled, bled and died so that we could see the promise, the promise and the hope of something far better than OUR WAY! So if you find yourself sitting down hard on the ground or in your dirty little mud puddle and taking residence there saying, "this is as far as I'm going", you may want to remember the Israelites. They didn't get struck down but they certainly didn't get all that was good and promised to them either. Have it your way if you like but I'm thinking that there's a whole lot of "wonderful" to see if you pick yourself up and move on and forward into some other way besides your own. And if not, well, the words of Dr. Phil might apply here. . . . "So how's that workin for ya?"