If you pay attention to the stories of the Bible, you figure out fairly quickly that 40 is a significant number. Most of us remember that the people of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus goes out into the wilderness after his baptism for 40 days. I'm fairly sure we are supposed to draw connections between those two events. Let's start with Israel.After their escape through the Red Sea, Israel wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years seeking the land that God had promised them. It was a long time. They tried worshipping other gods. They complained about being thirsty. They complained about starving. Then they complained about the manna that God sent to feed them. The children of Israel whined, complained, murmured and told golden stories about how wonderful life was back in Egypt. One scholar said that the 40 years (the approximate length of one generation of people) was not needed to get the people of Egypt; God needed the 40 years to get Egypt out of the people.
40 years. It is an indicator of how difficult a transition it was for the people of Israel. Life was terrible in Egypt but at least they knew what to expect. Life in the so-called 'promised land' was unknown, and therefore scary. 'Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't know' seemed to be Israel's motto.
Trusting in God is hard work. It requires that you lay down your point of view which is grounded in the past and assume God's point of view which is grounded in the future. An unknown future. No matter what is promised, there is no certainty about how the whole thing is going to play out. So the only thing left is to trust in this God, God's love for you, God's good intentions, and God's ability to give what God has promised. It's either that or whining. Stuck in the wilderness, Israel whined their way to the promised land for all 40 of the years.
Trusting God is no easier today. It simply isn't. We are smart people and we know that things don't always turn out the way you want them too. We know that bad things happen to everybody at some time. We know that there are a lot of untrustworthy people out there. People we know; people we can google. God is way bigger than all of that. Trusting God is not easy.
Most days we can muddle along without giving all of this a great deal of thought....until one day we find ourselves in a wilderness - stuck between what was and what will be - and our anxiety skyrockets and our trusting plummets. We stand knee deep in sand and feel the weight of the moment and the uncertainty of the future. For people of faith, these are the moments which insistently raise the question How much do you trust this God?
These are wonderfully horrible moments. Trust God or Abandon God? One is beyond difficult, and can easily leave you looking gullible. The other will leave you in the wild places until you find your way back to the God who is calling out to you, with life draining out all along the way and hope a long forgotten wish.
How was Alexander to know that the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was a gift, it was the day he and God could find each other yet again. [one of my favorite children's books Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Godd, Very Bad Day. Worth a read.]
