When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us.”
Ex. 32:1
Moses was on the mountain with the Lord for forty days and forty nights and the gathering of former slaves began to wonder if this Moses was not crazy, or dead. To ease their own minds they took matters into their own hands.
They had been slaves for four hundred years, but couldn’t wait forty days to hear from God. They had experienced the power and presence of God all the way to the foot of mount Zion, but in that place their spirits failed[HD1].
The people saw that Moses had been so long on the mountain but they had no idea what he was doing. It is that ignorance, that cloud of doubt that weighs on us all. “What IS He doing?” “When will God come down from His mountain?”
We are more comfortable with bad news than no news. I cry out to God but He does not make me understand why He does what He does and that is what makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t trust what is happening on that mountain.
I don’t trust that He is speaking for my best up there.
I know only the here and now and
the longing that keeps me alert at night,
the thirst that stirs me each morning,
and the hunger that hounds by day.
Perhaps tomorrow or the next day the answer will arrive. But There is no telling unless we are willing to endure the ambiguity and—wait. There is no telling how He will answer us unless we are willing to trust Him over time.
There is a rumble over the hill and it rolls down from the high mountain. God speaks in thunder and whispers on the wind—soon. Soon all that He has promised will be revealed. His kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven and this will surely be. “Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Is. 35:6).
He has been long in coming and the desert stretches ever further but we must not lose heart. If the cross tells us anything it tells us that God is always working His great plan. This is true even when times drags on and hope wanes.
Tomorrow, even tomorrow, may be our day of reward. We will never know if we give up—today.