A Little Patience

Hello everyone.

I haven't written anything in months.  Here is why:  I enrolled in a Master program in Biblical Studies with Languages.  I am currently taking a course in Basic Hebrew, and let me tell it is both difficult and time-consuming.  Any way that why there been such a big gap between posts.

Any way, I am still studying the book of Exodus in my own Bible study and have now reached Exodus 32.  Perhaps some day soon I can backtrack a little and share a few of the things that I have learned that brought me this far, but today I would like to share from yesterday's quiet time out of Exodus 32:1-6.  It is the story of the golden calf.

You are probably familiar with the story.  Moses has gone up on the mountain to receive the law from God. He is there a long time.  While he is gone, it seems that the people grow impatient, waiting for his return and begin to make some rather ungodly demands of the leadership.  They want Aaron to make them a god.  So he does.  He takes their earrings, melts them down and fashions a calf out of  the gold. Aaron announces that there will be a festival to the Lord, and before long the people of Israel is indulging themselves in all kinds of revelry, breaking several of the Ten Commandments.

There are two points from this story that struck a cord with me.  I will share one today. It is that impatience leads us to sin.  They were impatient with Moses, and ultimately with God.  There impatience led them into idol worship who knows what else. We can only imagine what else the words "indulge in revelry" actually mean here.  Had the people trusted God and been patient this would have never happened.  It's the same with us.  When I have been impatient with other people, it leads me to anger.  Then I end up saying and doing things I later regret.  In other words, sinning against people, usually those closest to me. That is why the Bible says, "Love is patient."  The challenge for me is to remember that in the moment and continue to love in spite someone else's irritating behavior.

When I am impatient with God, I try to force issues and make things happen myself, and it never ends the way I want it to.  I always try to remember what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:6 "Humble your therefore, under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time."  God's time-table is different than ours.  His usually take s longer.  But is is better.  We don't want to be like the Israelites who apparently had forgotten God's deliverance from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea and the Bread from heaven that God had given them.  They had forgotten how God had taken care of them every step of the way. Let us make sure that we are trusting God and waiting on Him, because He knows that best for us.

Tom