Tested at the waters of Meribah

"Lord, I can't believe this has happened! I trusted you." My disappointment was so painful I felt like a cruel joke had been played on me. But there was no place to turn but to the Lord. Mine was a cry from a desperate heart," I will not let you go until you bless me!"

I began the morning after my disappointment with heavy depression and resolve. I was going to read my Bible until I heard the voice of God. Because I try to read through the Bible every year I started where I had left off the day before. I tried to read but the words seemed to lie flat on the page. I saw words but I couldn't hear God's voice.

"This is how Job must have felt." Well maybe I would understand what God was doing to me if I read the last chapters of Job. I read but I didn't understand what God was saying to Job either! By now I had been reading for over an hour and still I could only see words on the page. I needed to start work but I still had a heavy heart and no answers.

As I got ready for the day I continued to pray ,"God, please,please help me! I don't understand what you are doing. I want to trust you but I don't understand!" I began to meditate on the things I had read that morning. I began with what I had read in Job. It was not the comfort I had been seeking but what was God saying?

As I thought about it, what I saw was God challenging Job with this question, "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!"Job 40:2 I realized that was what I was doing I was contending with the Almighty and accusing Him. Because I didn't understand what God was doing I felt like He was being cruel to me. This was my starting point.

Next I started thinking about the Psalm I had read that morning. Psalm 81:7 I tested you at the waters of Meribah.  Okay, what does that mean? What were the waters of Meribah. I found the answer in Exodus 17:7 where God gave the Israelites water from a rock and they quarreled and said,"Is the Lord among us or not?"

As I meditaited on Psalm 81 I began to feel like God was giving me an invitation to trust Him. Psalm 81:7-16 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it...But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me....If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways...with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

So I stand thirsty in the wilderness facing a rock. I'm not sure where I am I'm not sure where I'm going. This is a test a test of trust. It is the same test Eve had in the garden that I now have in the wilderness. Is God really good? Can I trust Him even if I don't understand Him?

I choose to trust. My soul is satisfied with living water I find sweetness in the hardest places of my life. I have entered into His rest!