Move - NOW!

Have you ever been stuck in the mud or snow? No matter how much gas you give the car, it just spins its wheels and goes nowhere. Not until someone comes along with the proper materials to aid in the effort to get unstuck will you move. Whatever it took to get you to the moment when that rescuer shouted "Now!", perhaps a little cinder, a little salt, maybe a board plank or two, without the proper preparation, you would have never moved. No matter how much gas you gave the car before, it wouldn't budge, but now with the right things in place - off you go! I wonder, is that how the people of Israel felt when they were waiting on God to give them the signal in the desert to move on?

 Numbers 9:22-23 Whether the cloud stayed above the Tabernacle for two days, a month, or a year, the people of Israel stayed in camp and did not move on. But as soon as it lifted, they broke camp and moved on. So they camped or traveled at the LORD's command, and they did whatever the LORD told them through Moses. Can you begin to imagine what it must have been like to move millions of people at a moment's notice? That is exactly what happened to the Hebrews. They waited on the Lord's command and then as soon as it was received, they broke camp and moved! However, just as they moved when told, they did not move until they were told. It is impossible to enter the mind of God and understand why sometimes they had to move the very next day and other times they stayed put for a year. Yet that is exactly what happened. Take a journey through chapters 9 and 10 of Numbers and study the intricacy of God's plan for their movement. The sound of the trumpets (shofars) signaled all activity regarding their movement. Imagine waiting every day, wondering, will it blow today? Do we stay on our daily schedule of activities or do we begin to pack up yet one more time?

How willing are we to pack up on a moment's notice and move on to the next stage of our walk with Him? How willing are we to be still in this same place for what seems like an eternity when we cannot see anything identifiable happening in our lives? We acknowledge by our words that God is in control, but our actions sometimes give a different message. We start inching out on our own believing that God must want us to do something! After all He gave me these gifts, and He knows I love Him and want to serve Him. Surely He wants me doing something right now. So we begin to try things and move out of the place where He last put us believing that we know what is good for us. Or do we?

The Old Testament is filled with examples of the people of Israel complaining because things aren't going the way they think they should be. They tested God's patience and His anger many times and the results were not usually favorable for them. Check out Numbers 11:10 Moses heard all the families standing in front of their tents weeping, and the LORD became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated. This was when the people were complaining about having only manna to eat. The full chapter bears reading because it will remind us of the importance of what Paul advises us in Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. God has us in a place for a season for a reason. If we attempt to move out of that place before it is His will, we do so at great risk.

Think back to your car stuck in the snow. When I lived in snow country, I witnessed many times people who got stuck and then instead of utilizing patience and common sense to get out, put themselves in worse situations because of their impatience. Sometimes they ended up buried in a deeper ditch having gone in the opposite direction they planned. Sometimes they spun out of control just when they thought they had the problem licked and ended up hitting a telephone pole. When we move impetuously, we usually suffer ill fated consequences. However, if we will wait on the Lord to tell us when to move because He has properly prepared the way, the results are usually beyond what we imagined could occur.

According to my concordance, the word wait or its variations appears 160 times in the Word of God. Compare that to the word move or its variations which appears less than 100. It would seem that God has more trouble getting us to understand the concept of waiting than moving. :-) Our human nature struggles with being still. It also struggles with someone else being in control. Yet both of these are important acts of obedience if we wish to be where God wants us to be at all times. Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Personally I want to know the voice of God so intimately in my life that when He blows the shofar for me to move, I don't want to confuse it with noise of this world. I want to know that He is God in such a powerful way, that when He speaks to me, I hear loudly and clearly that awesome direction from Him, "Move - NOW!"  What about you?