Believing Behavior

Monday, March 6, 2023

Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom.  But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses.  “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink.  And we hate this horrible manna!”  So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died.  Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you.  Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.”  So Moses prayed for the people.  Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!”  So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole.  Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!  Numbers 21:4-9

Have you ever wondered why a prayer you lifted to Heaven never got answered?  You’re not alone.  Most people are reluctant to say that out loud, fearing perhaps God might immediately strike them dead with a lightning bolt, or, at the least, they’ll be embarrassed.

I think the answer to the question about why a prayer seemingly goes unanswered has to do with our lack of believing behavior.  We fail to see how this thing we’ve asked for will be answered, and our expectation becomes our reality; nothing happens.  It’s like a golfer taking a half-hearted swing at the ball, because he really wasn’t confident he could make the shot.  The result is what he expected deep down, not what he wanted.  His behavior wasn’t believing.

Now, please don’t lump me in with the name it and claim it or blab it and grab it fruitcake clans.  Most of that tripe is, at worst, thinking you can control God, forcing the Almighty into a corner with His promises attached to your unholy and thinly-disguised greedy materialism.  At the very least it is a misguided view of who is God, and who is not God.

In the case of God’s children in the wilderness, they wanted a change from manna, that supernatural, gracious provision from Heaven.  They weren’t satisfied and began to blame God and Moses for bringing them out to the wilderness and providing everything they needed on their journey to the Promised Land…also freely offered to them by their God.  That whole snake thing could have been avoided, but their unbelief in the way God was releasing them from Egyptian bondage, made their behavior a stench in Heaven’s nostrils.   

Horrified by the thought of being exterminated by the serpents, one painful bite at a time, they turned in repentance.  They cried-out loudly:  We have sinned!    Notice however, God didn’t just make the snakes disappear; he had Moses make another snake, bronzed and on a pole.  Their faith wasn’t behavioral obedience until they looked to the serpent on the pole.  

In following through (like a golfer, confident in his shot would follow through) those who had been bitten would be healed.  Perhaps, like any good father would expect from a child who has broken the rules, the LORD wanted to see if their belief would truly become behavior.

For You Today 

If your desire is to go beyond wish kind of prayers, to faith prayers, let your behavior follow the words you utter with bowed head.  Believing Behavior!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:  Snake On a Pole  and  Fall, Repent, Repeat      

Title Image: via Wikimedia.org    Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©