Where Is God When I Want To Throw A Rock?

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      In Exodus 17 Moses and the Children of Israel truly show their pitiful and self-serving intentions when they worry, gripe, complain, quarrel and test the Lord over whether they have enough water to drink or not. They plead with Moses to give them some water since they are about to “thirst to death”. We’ve all said words like these that declare our great, deprived condition when in reality, we were far from death and only stressing our point for emphasis.
      This thirsting-to-death mob immediately jumped to exclaiming how they were better off as slaves. "Were we brought here to die in this dried up ditch?" They probably even said something about how the Nile River had plenty of water back in “Good Old Egypt”.
      God is an easy target for all of our griping and complaining. Any time something goes wrong, we are quick to jump on God for the hard ride with disobedient behavior and wailing. “O God, why have you caused this to happen to me?” we exclaim. But as much as God is an “easy” target, God is not a “good” or particularly satisfying target, since there is little we can do to hurt or “get at” God, we think. And so, this is the reason the Children of Israel were ready to pick up some rocks to throw at Moses. They could not hit God with a rock, and Moses seemed to be the next best option.
      I will tell you, these Children of Israel were truly acting like spoiled children in their behavior, and, of course, we find their childish and selfish actions abhorrent. One would think that they would have been better “God followers” and would have learned more from their Saturday School teachers than they are revealing here.
      Then we ask the great question, “Do you think God can handle it if we are angry at God?” Behind the question is the belief that God expects us to always be cheery, complacent, decent and agreeable, and we wonder how God deals with us when we are angry, upset, and questioning.
      We point out those Israelites and how they seemed to be poor examples of human beings. Here they were being offered the land of plenty and blessing with all the provisions needed to get there, and all they could do was complain.
      How does God handle us when we throw a tantrum, stomp the ground, scream and yell like a child “wollarin’ around” in the floor of the grocery story in the checkout lane before the great altar of candy? How does God deal with us when we pick up rocks and get ready to hurl them with the intent of harm? How does God handle our anger?
      God handles our anger by “taking it”. Maybe the thirsty and peeved Children of Israel in Exodus 17 had no target at which to throw their rocks when they wanted to hurt God, but there was a time when humanity HAD a target. God was with us, physically, in Jesus, as a real target. Jesus was available to receive our rocks, to hear our complaints, to witness to our selfish conceit.
      Can God handle our anger?” you ask. The answer is “Yes.” God handles all anger by taking it, receiving it, bearing it, being a victim to it, and being defeated by it. Can we “get at” God? We can, we did, and we will. How does God deal with our anger? God deals with it by understanding, forgiveness, and love. Can we hurt God? Yes we can, yes we have, and yes we will, again.
      God is available, present, approachable, imminent, intimate, and touchable. If we are self-serving, conceited, vicious, unruly, and abhorrent, God can take it on the chin, suffer wounds, die a little death, and at the same time be quick to forgive our sin.
      Where is God when I want to throw a rock? God is on the Cross as the available victim of my sin.

Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com