Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, October 6, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Just as with the manna, God doesn’t show up according to our script. The Israelites probably would have preferred actual bread, but what they God was exactly what they needed. Now they want water—and with good reason—and the fact that it hasn’t immediately presented itself to them leads them to get ornery. I can’t blame them. They’ve run for their lives from a lifetime of slavery, they’re wandering in the desert trying to survive, and Moses has assured them that all of this is God’s will and that God will take care of them. But if you don’t have water you die. So it makes perfect sense that the people demanded to know, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
And, of course, God is. God shows up not in some creek they missed in their wandering, but in water to gushing forth out of a rock.
We all have spiritually dry periods in our lives. We all find ourselves wondering, “Is God with me or not?” I sometimes find myself just flat out angry at God for not showing up when I feel God really ought to. And I quarrel and test God just like the Israelites, because I’m human and I get scared. But so far in my life experience I have found that no matter how convinced I am that everything will be miserable forever, I always find myself staring, gobsmacked, at God’s love and care gushing forth from where I least expect it.
When have I felt abandoned or neglected by God? When and how did I notice that God had shown up?
