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.
Most of us would like an opportunity. But very few of us want an impossible situation. We see a problem and we are tempted to throw up our hands and give up. But what if that annoying situation is the opportunity we’ve been looking for?
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
Charles R. Swindoll
Today I started reading in the Book of Exodus. It looked like the Israelites were in an impossible situation. Moses even believed it was the case. He tried to solve the situation forty years later. Instead, he murdered an Egyptian and fled for his life. Now he was safe while his fellow Hebrews continued to suffer under Pharaoh.
Then God shows up and gives Moses an impossible assignment. Moses tries to convince The LORD he has the wrong guy. Moses even pleads to just send someone else. God wasn’t having any of it.
But the LORD didn’t sugarcoat the assignment either. He tells Moses that he knows Pharaoh will not relent without great pressure. Any opportunity is like that. There will be opposition and we will wonder at times if it is worth it.
That is why comfort is so appealing. We like to think someone else will do it, sit back, and let others duke it out. After all, it is always much easier to do nothing and complain than to do something that could change the situation.
Are we ready to come face to face with opportunities and the impossible? Or are we going to sit back and complain about the world? One option makes us and the world better. The other just makes us comfortable in our bitterness.
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.
“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.
Here is a coloring page for you. It is based on the Plague of Frogs in Exodus 8.
Click on the image to download a pdf of this file. Feel free to use this for classroom and ministry use.