I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. Exodus 17:6 NIV
If the prospect of launching out into 2026 looks more like heading across a forbidding desert than launching out on a journey of discovery, then remember that God has promised us streams in the desert. When the children of Israel wandered in a desert (Ironically called the Desert of SIN) without water, they became so thirsty that they were ready to stone Moses for leading them there. Then God commanded Moses do a very odd thing (God seems to major in odd things!) He told Him to take His shepherd’s staff and hot a large rock. This technique isn’t in any well drilling manual I have ever heard of. The best you might expect out of hitting a rock with a stick is a broken stick. But God always has greater things in mind and when he hit the rock, a stream of water so large began flowing out that it was enough for hundreds of thousands of people to drink.
In the same way, in our own desert of sin, God sent His Son Jesus who was struck on the cross with a lethal blow. From His side flowed water and blood and that blood He shed opened for all who would come to Him in faith a mighty river in our wasteland and provision for our journey, no matter what lies ahead in the coming year. I hope you may be blessed by this simple message which I shared at Life Care Center last Friday. May God bless you richly and open for you a path in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Happy New Year in 2026!
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I always found it intriguing, Pastor Pete, that God told him to strike the rock in Exodus 17 at the beginning of the wilderness, but to speak to the rock in Numbers 20, about 40 years later near the end of the wilderness experience. Pondering why the difference in the commands from the same God in the same desert for the same need?
Wonder if you can get a sermon out of that?😉
❤️&🙏, c.a.
The best answer I know is to look at that God told Moses after the second incident, that he had not trusted God and that he had not honored Him as Holy. In the first instance, Moses simply went to God, asked Him what to do and then humbly obeyed. Though we could come up with all kinds of interpretations, what is clear is that God cares about us listening and obeying. Though the two situations seemed identical to both us and Moses, God is sovereign and may choose different ways for us to do things and He wants us to trust Him. As an older person I can empathize with Moses because we both have had so much experience with problems that we sometimes think we know what will happen next, but in the words of the old song, “it ain’t necessarily so”. God’s ways are past our finding out; He loves us and knows what is best. I hope that helps my brother. Happy New Year!