506-1-2-5 Re: Deuteronomy 3:25,26. Remembering a time when the Lord told me to stop asking for something and what I learned from this

Deuteronomy 3:25-26, “25 I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. 26 But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the LORD said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter."

Last fall I had a comeuppance from God while at my summer home in northeastern Arizona. I often say that in addition to the certainty of death and taxes is the wind in Arizona. The wind was blowing at 20 plus miles per hour with gusts. I was driving the nearly 30 miles to town to the post office and to refill propane tanks.

I often talk to God when I'm driving and perhaps I was being just a little bit too familiar. I was asking him to help me get over something I was feeling bitter about that dealt with him.

 1. For months friends and I had prayed that my left eye would be healed after cataract surgery. Rather than healing my eye directly God sent me to a very skilled surgeon with the result of a successful partial cornea transplant surgery. A few months later I had both cataract and partial cornea transplant on the right eye. However, my bitterness was that I possibly further harmed my left eye by waiting several months for God to act.

 2. I had recently been told my very good friend and Bible teacher had a stroke and fell and broke her hip. Within minutes the EMTs were there and wanted to take her to the hospital. She refused to go and was declared competent. Hours later she finally agreed to go to the hospital, sadly after she most likely loss more function due to time wasted. Was she so deep in the belief that God would heal her brain and hip that she refused immediate medical assistance? I suspect so.

So back to my complaining to God. I barely got the words out of my mouth when I was slammed by a very powerful gust of wind and I was barely able to keep control over my van. Oops.

This experience brought to mind Job Chapter 38”

Job 38:1  Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 

Job 38:2  Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 

It could have been worse, the Israelis murmured and had to spend another 38 years in the wilderness. We have a merciful God. But no more murmuring on my part.