We’ve all had to wait for something. We may have a dream or goal that isn’t happening as fast as we’d like. But how about waiting for forty years? Lack of patience and faith is why Moses heard a lot of complaining!
A big test of our faith in a dream or goal is our patience. When we look forward to something, we can’t wait for it to get here. We may have to save, labor, and plod ahead to reach a goal. Yet, our estimate of how long something takes can be way off.
Dreams are important. They are crucial to change. I was thumbing through my notebooks and found this quote from 2012. I don’t see anywhere online where this Zig Ziglar quote is attributed, but it sounds like something he would say.
The reason the Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness because they lost their dream.
Zig Ziglar
What a powerful quote! If you don’t know the story of the Israelites’ forty-year detour, it began when twelve spies venture out to assess the land they were about to conquer. Ten came back with a report that the land was fertile, but the occupants were too much to conquer.
Two spies reported with God’s help, they could conquer the land. The people listened to the ten spies with a negative report instead of the two that had faith. As a result, It took another forty years before they could return and conquer the land.
God gave Moses the dream and he cast that dream to the people. They thought they were ready until they faced opposition. As a result, it took forty more years of vision casting before the people were ready.
It reminded me of a dream I had six years ago that ended badly. When that happens, the temptation is to give up, lick my wounds, and coast. But a life without a dream is like being in a barren, dry wilderness. The wrong lesson is to learn to be comfortable in the wilderness
Keep dreaming! Maybe the last couple of years have been hard on you too. Resist the temptation to just live in comfortable discomfort. If a dream ended badly, consider how that dream can be modified. Or dream a new dream! There is reason to keep hope alive and move forward.
You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself.
Ethel Barrymore
The story of Moses and the Israelites have always intrigued me. Here is a story about a group of people that found their freedom through a series of miracles, yet they had the tendency to moan and groan. Their complaining turned a two-week trip into a forty-year camping ordeal. It was such an interesting story to me that I made a coloring and activity book out of it.
Things would have turned out much better if they had faith and realized how silly they were acting. Of course, that also means things will turn out better for me when I remember to do the same.
This cartoon stands out to me because when I wrote this, I had lived in the same place for years. My address was not more than fifty miles from my birthplace. I had never lived anywhere but Central Indiana until five years ago. Now I see myself in this cartoon and laugh at our adventures and misadventures over the last five years.
It’s not much fun to be around someone who either has forgotten to laugh at themselves or never learned to. I am thankful I have learned to laugh over the years.
Have you learned to laugh at yourself? Let us know in the comments below.
Timing is everything and this poor guy got left behind. I imagine he was at the coffee shop or browsing the scrolls at the local papyrus store. Let’s hope he gets to the Red Sea before Pharaoh’s army does.
“And it would be great if I can get this as a spreadsheet or word processor file.”
Are things any better with the immediacy of technology? Maybe not. Maybe it’s a wash. Digital files are more convenient and instant, but they can be deleted or corrupted in an instant.
Then again, Moses the original Ten Commandments were written in stone and Moses smashed them to pieces because of the Israelite’s idol worship.