Leadership / Life Lesson

This really spoke to me this morning. It is so easy as a parent, leader, and person of influence to focus on what others are doing rather than on what God is doing. I can see in my own life that I have developed a sinful self-righteous frustrated attitude when I focused on what people were doing rather than focusing on who God is and what He is doing.

Here is what Blackaby said in his devotion today:

And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?" (Numbers 20:10)

It is easy to see why Moses became frustrated with the Hebrew people. They were so hard-hearted and weak in their faith that Moses lost his patience and became angry with them. Yet every time Moses shifted his focus away from God, it cost him. When he sought to help his people by taking matters into his own hands, he spent the next forty years herding sheep in the wilderness_(Exod. 2:11–15). This time his impetuous behavior cost him the opportunity to enter the Promised Land (Num. 20:12). In his frustration at the peoples’ irreverence, Moses committed the very same sin, blatantly disobeying God’s instructions. How did this happen? Moses allowed his attention to shift to the behavior of others rather than focusing on the activity of God.

This could happen to you as well. God has put people around you who need your ministry to them. You will never be able to properly help them, however, unless your primary focus is on God. If you concentrate on people, their weaknesses, their disobedience, their lack of faith, and their stubbornness will quickly frustrate you. You may, like Moses, commit the very sins you are condemning. If, however, your eyes are fixed on holy God, you will become more like Him—gracious, forgiving, long-suffering, and righteous. When a friend’s behavior disappoints you, go immediately to the Lord. Seek to discern what God is wanting to do in your friend’s life rather than concentrating on your friend’s sin. Then you will have the strength, wisdom, and patience you need to help your friend in the way God desires.

This also makes me think of the encouragement the Hebrew writer gave to his Jewish congregation.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? (Hebrews 12:2-7)

Providentially, D.A. Carson's devotion was on the same text. Here are some of his insights.

God does not say, “Because you did not obey me enough …” but “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy.… ” There was, of course, formal disobedience: God said to speak, and Moses struck the rock. But God perceives that the problem is deeper yet. The people have worn Moses down, and Moses responds in kind. His response is not only the striking of the rock, it is the answer of a man who under pressure has become bitter and pretentious (which is certainly not to say that any of us would have done any better!). What has evaporated is transparent trust in God: God is not being honored as holy.
D. A. Carson, For the Love of God: Volume 1 (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1998), May 11.