e162 What Breaks My Heart in All the Right Places (a view of Mount Nebo)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 3 Episode 162 What Breaks My Heart in All the Right Places (a view from Mount Nebo)

True or False:  You can imagine what God has prepared for you.

Here’s the gist, human.  What do you imagine God has prepared for you? Moses lived a hard-fought testimony and died in the arms of God. (or so I envision it). Today we consider obedience gone rogue, two strikes on a rock and a God who represents his holiness. We explore a shepherd’s mental path: Forget not. Accept. Trust. We climb Mount Nebo to see how Moses left this earth. An obedient servant. With a distant view of the Promised Land alongside the God he served. It breaks my heart in all the right places.

E162. Thanks for listening.

In 2024 I discovered Deuteronomy and was so surprised by it. Jesus quoted from it more than any other book other than Psalms. This year, during my annual read-through I stopped at one point to get my brain around how long 40 years is. Practically all of my adult life. My spouse and I celebrated our 40th anniversary this year, so it would be like wandering in the desert our entire marriage. Wandering while waiting for the male 20-year-olds and older who were counted in the census to die, so the rest could stop the wandering and start the next chapter of God’s story.

The entire book is story time with Moses. He gives the Israelites a deeply personal history lesson about what happened during this time. What they had just lived for the past 40 years. Not to oversimplify, but it was a story about what God did, and how the Israelites responded. The “you” Moses is referring to throughout is the Israeli nation. Seems pretty elementary but it is important to remember who he is talking to, a “stiff-necked people” … “a rebellious people.”

Yet he defended them before God, and pleaded that God not destroy “his inheritance.” He reviewed with repetition what they should do to have a relationship with the Lord, their God. And what they should not do, how to navigate the day to day. Moses kept coming back to God: To love God, not forget God, love and obey God, to follow God. And all the ways to assure that happens, the how to do things, and what conduct will separate them from God.

He cared about it all.

His life is a shepherd turned leader, the only one who was face to face with God in his conversations, a leader who found his lowly place, like Jesus, in God’s story.

When? When he struck the rock twice at the waters of Meribah. So, we have to back up to the book of Numbers for a minute.

Numbers 20: 6-11

 

6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. 7 The Lord said to Moses, 8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

 

9 So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

 

And then what happened? God said:

Numbers 20:12-13

 

“Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them”.

 

13 These were the waters of Meribah where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where he was proved holy among them.

 

Aaron died on Mount Hor before the Israelites crossed the Jordan.  Moses saw the Promised Land from afar. Then died.

Don’t Forget What God Has Done for You

What do we learn from this scene in the life of Moses? To trust that God will represent his holiness. Let’s track a powerful lesson through the words of Moses.

Deuteronomy 4:4-20

 

Obedience Commanded

 

4 Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

 

3 You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Peor. The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, 4 but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today.

 

5 See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” 7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

 

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. 14 And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

 

20 But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

 

Don’t forget what God has done for you. Oh yeah, thank you Holy Spirit for bringing this to us as we move through the month of Thanksgiving, in preparation for celebration of Jesus’ birth. We should start a list today of Red Sea moments God has done for us personally, oh yeah, it’s personal. See where that list takes us by the end of November. I’ll share mine in episode e165, publish date of November 26, the day before Thanksgiving 2025. If you want me to personally respond to your list in e165, I will. Send your list to: deeperwater@kathrynbise.com by Monday, November 24. Listeners would love hearing examples that made your list (anonymously, if that’s your wish).

Do your list, human.

If you are someone who happened on this podcast, but maybe don’t believe in God, or haven’t really given his existence much thought, or you have, and just don’t know, here’s what I say: backtrack in your thought life to good things, unexpected things that have happened in your life, your challenges, your struggles you came through but you are still in awe of HOW.

Make that list.

Accept the Plan God Has for You

Moses and Aaron were both forbidden from entering the Promised Land due to their disobedience to God at the waters of Meribah. They struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God had commanded.

We see the consequences of obedience gone rogue.

It would be easy to respond like this: “After all I’ve done for your people, God. You deny me entrance to the Land, the very Promise that we wandered in the wilderness for, over 40 years?” I wonder what Moses was thinking because if it were me, I would be feeling anxious, and wondering how Joshua would follow, keep up with God, how the people would do without me… (yeah, pride creeping in).

But Moses accepted his consequence. He accepted the plan God had for him.

Deuteronomy 4:21-22

 

21 The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. 22 I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land.

 

With the grace only God could put in his heart, that he should set Joshua up for success, that he would bless and encourage him. And Moses was obedient to his death. I have always thought it would be such a blessing to know my personal sequence for dying. Moses knew. God told him to prepare Joshua, that the “day of his death was near.” And this came to be. It is one of my favorite scenes in all of God’s story, a divinely personal “last rights” for someone I will see in heaven.

Deuteronomy 34: 1-8

 

34 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, 3 the Negev (NEG-ev) and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

 

5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

 

God showed Moses the Promised Land, personally. And then he consummated his death and buried him.

This is so powerful. Moses left this earth as an obedient servant. With a view of the Promised Land alongside the God he served.

Same for us, human.

Stop Striking the Rock

But for now, we have to return to the rock and what it means. Consider not putting your own spin on God’s direction for you. Did I say that out loud? Because I am saying that to me. God’s truth is this, that he acts from his sovereign nature. He needs no one to strike a rock two times to make anything happen.

Accept the plan God has for you, the circumstance, the season you are in right now, and take inventory of what you hang on to about your life that may not be in God’s plan for you.

We may spend our life committed to a project, a plan, a ministry, a work meticulously laid out in our lives by God, but we are not the ones to see that work come to fruition. We are shepherds in the footsteps of the Shepherd who tend to it, from pasture to pasture, until we rest in the pasture of God’s choice. Until we see the final view God has for us in this earthly life. Like Moses.

This breaks my heart in all the right places.

Our Hearts Cannot Imagine What God Has Prepared For Us

In chapter 4, where we began today, Moses impressed upon the Israeli nation the power and sanctity of God’s sovereignty. An inspired description.

That there is no other.

Deuteronomy 4:32-38

 

The Lord Is God

 

32 Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? 33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

 

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. 37 Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

 

And Moses brings it home in verse 39:

39 Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. 40 Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time.

Moses says all of this “so it may go well” with us, and that “we may live long in the land.” To remember the God of the Red Sea, all the wanderings and God’s Will for his people. And approximately 1400 years later, the apostle Paul talks of the future we each have, that because we worship the one and only God, we cannot comprehend what God has prepared for us. Even after reading about, studying God’s story within the Israeli nation for two thousand years.

1 Corinthians 2:9

 

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

 

True or False:  You can imagine what God has prepared for you.

False.

We cannot imagine what God has prepared for each of us, no matter how our heart yearns to do so. Because he is God.

But we know what God has done for us.

This presents an incredible commission for each of us, doesn’t it? That how we bear testimony to the ways God is moving in our lives, is left to his illumination, his holy light that beacons someone’s heart to draw closer to him. And our commission for those who turn their face away from God, that we trust God to represent his holiness in their lives through how he instructs us to speak to the rock. To speak to the one who is lost. To speak to the one who has gone astray.

Thank you, Moses. Your earthly farewell resonates within us.

Here it is, human.

Forget not what God has done in your life. Start your list.

Accept God’s plan for you. A plan beyond what your heart can imagine.

Trust God to represent his holiness. Stop striking the rock. Speak his name.