February 28, 2010: Running Naked – Michael Hidalgo

When God tells Moses that he is going to rescue his people he does not speak about the space between. He simply says, “out of slavery” to a “land flowing with milk and honey.” There is no detail about the wilderness. The dry, desert filled with dirt and rocks. Yet a time later in the dry desert is exactly where the people of Israel are. 

 

After a few years of God giving manna to his people they begin to get sick of it. They begin to grumble, they begin to complain. They want this and that … they even say to God, “We would be better off without you.” Moses, who has been called into the desert before God gets really honest with God. He cries out to God. It is gut-level honesty. In his outcry, God hears him.

 

God does not say, “How dare you Moses?!?” He simply says, “I will give you help.” As we begin our journey in the wilderness we must do so with eyes wide open knowing that it is a difficult journey. One often marked by pain, sorrow, trying times, but God is in the desert.