Deuteronomy 9:13-21
Psalms 49, 53, 119:49-72
Hebrews 3:12-19
John 2:23-3:15
When
it’s God that calls you stubborn, there is no denying it. Humans are a “stiff-necked people indeed!” We tend to focus on the beginning of the story
of Moses. That part where God uses his
endless might to bring a powerful Pharaoh to his knees in order to free the
Israelites. We seem to forget about the
part in which those same Israelites turn around in a matter of days and begin
to worship a metallic effigy of livestock.
God, in understandable frustration, promises to dispose of these
ridiculously thick individuals and find Moses some more suitably grateful followers.
At
the cursory level, the moral of this story is simple: listen to God; don’t be
stubborn. While a wonderfully true
statement, I don’t feel that this maxim quite captures all that his passage has
to offer.
Tenacity
is so often seen as foolish or pathetic. How habitually have we been advised to “just
let it go and move on?” Has anyone ever
told you “it’s just not worth your time?” Perhaps out of fear, or simply out of habit,
the Israelites were unable to “let go and move on” from false gods to the one
true God. Yet, if it weren’t for the
courageous tenacity of Moses and his unwillingness to the let his people die,
this story would have a far more abrupt ending. Moses, in answer to the foolish stubbornness
of the Israelites presented his own brand of tenacity and showed God that
obstinacy can be both humanity’s weakness and strength.
And
where would we as human beings be today if not for the stubbornness of our God? If I’m being honest, I would have labeled
humanity a failed experiment and given up on them within the first week of our
creation. But God didn’t. He buckled
down and prepared for millennia of disappointment and heartbreak because
tenacity is the hardest when it is the most worthwhile.
So
when is it good to be stubborn? It is
good when we are sharing God’s word. It
is good when we are doing his work. It
is good when others doubt his plan for us. It is good when we begin to question our own
worth. Whenever it is the least bit
difficult to be a child of God, that is when we need to remind ourselves of
just how stubborn we can be.
Lisa Ellis
Senior, Memorial High
School