In case you didn't see the article I wrote for the recent church newsletter, I'll include it here.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
When I was a teen, my Forest Service dad was stationed in the hills outside Bakersfield, California, in a little town called Kernville. My siblings and I would often play in an area we called Poodle Puppy Park. It wasn’t an official place in town, but an area of big boulders and scrub brush in the hills across the highway. From our house, the location of the boulders and brush looked like the face of a poodle—thus, the name. We would often go there to play Cowboys and Indians, or Survivalists. We would become pioneer children whose parents had died and we’d somehow been separated from the wagon train and had to use our wilderness skills to survive. It’s hard to believe now, but we were actually allowed to spend the night out there a time or two. The scariest part of climbing those rugged hills was jumping from rock to rock as we made our way to the highest point. I was always afraid that I would have an unsuccessful jump and instead of landing on the next boulder, I would fall between the two and break my leg in a nest of rattlesnakes. The thought of being between a rock and a hard place did not appeal to me at all!
I was recently reading a part of Scripture which refers to God and Moses having a conversation with each other. I’m not talking about traditional prayer here, but a genuine one-on-one conversation. In Exodus 33, in the midst of their interaction, Moses asks God to show him His glory. (vs. 18) That sounds pretty audacious to most of us, but the Lord doesn’t seem to even blink an eye. His response is that He will cause all of His goodness to pass in front of Moses.
How could Moses possibly take in all the goodness, the glory, of God? We are overwhelmed when we see the Lord working in our lives, or in the lives of people we’re praying for. We are in awe of God in the power of the ocean, or the majesty of the mountains. We may catch a glimpse of God and His goodness, but our earthly lives are not able to totally absorb the entire greatness of God.
The Lord knew the same was true of Moses. He would not be able to withstand seeing God’s goodness. So the Lord told him “There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will removed My hand and you will see My back, but My face must not be seen.” (vs. 21,22)
So God placed Moses in the cleft of the rock—which boils down to being between a rock and a hard place. Moses could have easily felt confined in that small space. It would have been dark and uncomfortable. It could have seemed he was being punished and put in a timeout! But that’s not at all what God was doing, was it? He Himself placed Moses there for his own safety. The Lord’s hand covered and protected Moses. Instead of God putting him there to distance him from God, He carefully positioned him because of His nearness. And God’s hand didn’t move until He was through and Moses was allowed to see His back.
This is often what God does with us. There are times and circumstances when we feel we’re in that proverbial spot of being between a rock and a hard place. We sense everything is pressing down on us, and darkness is all we can see. We may even feel abandoned by God. Yet perhaps in those times, more than any other, God’s goodness is so real and so near that we would be unable to bear it if we knew what was really going on. He hides us in the cleft of the Rock (Jesus) and covers us with His hand. His love and care are evident when He finishes His work and we see His back—finally understand what He’s been doing during our “rocky” times.
The next time you find yourself in a tight spot, or between a rock and a hard place, remind yourself that the hand of God has placed you there. And because of that, it’s the best place you could be. You may not see it right away, but God’s glory has been present.
Until next week,
Sherrie Ashcraft, Women's Ministry Director
sherrieashcraft@gmail.com 971-285-6699
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