EXODUS 32:1 : Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the
people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for
as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has
become of him.”
Archibald Rutledge wrote that one day he met a man whose dog had just been killed in a forest fire.
Heartbroken, the man explained to Rutledge how it happened. Because he worked outdoors, he often
took his dog with him. That morning he left the animal in a clearing and gave him a command to stay
and watch his lunch pail.
A fire started in the woods, and soon the blaze spread to the spot where the dog had been left. But he
didn’t move. He waited right where he was and perished.
The Israelites, on the other hand, quickly grew weary of waiting. Moses had been gone only 40 days
when they began to pressure Aaron to find “gods” that could lead them into the Promised Land. Their
only thought was of the pleasures that awaited them in a land “flowing with milk and honey.” They
grew restless under the need to wait.
Christians face the same temptation. Often we are eager to get on with it. We have so much to do; so
many tasks beckon us forward. We don’t want to sit and wait, so we lurch forward with gods of our
own making. We use our own wisdom and strength to try to reach goals that only God is adequate to
achieve.
If you find yourself straining to go forward when God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, hold back and
wait. Perhaps He has an entirely different plan for your life. Concentrate on what you must do now
and let God move you ahead when the time is right.
WAIT ON GOD AND WANT FOR NOTHING