“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?”
"He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock." (Deuteronomy 8:15).
“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?” When Indiana Jones said this, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I think he echoed what many people also felt, myself included. There is something particularly nasty about snakes.
One night in Africa, in October 2017, venturing bare foot from the bedroom into our dark lounge room, to retrieve my torch during a black-out, I stepped on something squishy. When I turned on the torch to see what it was I was startled to find it was a Black Mamba snake! (Thankfully it was only young, about 30 cm long. I think it got a bigger shock than I did and although it bit me underneath my big toe, because it was young and my skin was tough the consequences were not serious.)
Having been safely led through a nightmarishly unpleasant wilderness, including the presence of snakes, of course, God's people still grumbled about their lot. So God, who can do anything He likes, produced water out of hard rock. The reader of this history would have thought that should do it, that should cause the people to trust God, but...
Well, it is strange, but even with the benefit of this and many other examples in the Bible, and even having the Holy Spirit, God's people today are still sometimes as fickle as these people mentioned here in Deuteronomy when it comes to trusting God. We also quickly forget!
While God may not prevent unwanted things happening in your life, like stepping on snakes in the middle of the night, or the myriad things that happen which we wouldn't have scripted into our lives, He always safely leads His people through them to achieve the purposes He has in them.
One of those purposes is to lead His people to trust Him. We can learn from this that we too need God's help daily to truly trust Him. This is facilitated through two daily activities, reading the Bible and praying to God. When we find ourselves lacking in trust, it is often due to a lack of these two vital things in our lives.
If we go without food and water we get hungry and thirsty and we do not operate very well. If we go without hearing from and speaking with our loved ones we grow distant from them. How much more when we go without hearing from (reading the Bible) and speaking with (prayer) God.
God, help us to read and pray and trust every day.
Photo (taken in Liwonde in 2017) and reflection by Craig Manners.
"He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock." (Deuteronomy 8:15).
“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?” When Indiana Jones said this, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I think he echoed what many people also felt, myself included. There is something particularly nasty about snakes.
One night in Africa, in October 2017, venturing bare foot from the bedroom into our dark lounge room, to retrieve my torch during a black-out, I stepped on something squishy. When I turned on the torch to see what it was I was startled to find it was a Black Mamba snake! (Thankfully it was only young, about 30 cm long. I think it got a bigger shock than I did and although it bit me underneath my big toe, because it was young and my skin was tough the consequences were not serious.)
Having been safely led through a nightmarishly unpleasant wilderness, including the presence of snakes, of course, God's people still grumbled about their lot. So God, who can do anything He likes, produced water out of hard rock. The reader of this history would have thought that should do it, that should cause the people to trust God, but...
Well, it is strange, but even with the benefit of this and many other examples in the Bible, and even having the Holy Spirit, God's people today are still sometimes as fickle as these people mentioned here in Deuteronomy when it comes to trusting God. We also quickly forget!
While God may not prevent unwanted things happening in your life, like stepping on snakes in the middle of the night, or the myriad things that happen which we wouldn't have scripted into our lives, He always safely leads His people through them to achieve the purposes He has in them.
One of those purposes is to lead His people to trust Him. We can learn from this that we too need God's help daily to truly trust Him. This is facilitated through two daily activities, reading the Bible and praying to God. When we find ourselves lacking in trust, it is often due to a lack of these two vital things in our lives.
If we go without food and water we get hungry and thirsty and we do not operate very well. If we go without hearing from and speaking with our loved ones we grow distant from them. How much more when we go without hearing from (reading the Bible) and speaking with (prayer) God.
God, help us to read and pray and trust every day.
Photo (taken in Liwonde in 2017) and reflection by Craig Manners.
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