Moses, in anger, doubted the Lord about speaking to the rock. Instead, he hit it twice. His anger caused him to doubt that just speaking to the rock would cause water to come forth. You see, earlier, at Horeb, God had instructed him to hit the rock and the water that the people needed would come out. There, he obeyed and the miracle occurred.

But we have to focus on what He was doing, how He was serving – He was washing them, washing their feet. Of course, you may be aware that this was not an uncommon practice at the time. Generally speaking, people’s feet were filthy, having walked on dusty roads.

So, what exactly was the lesson?

That’s what we learn about Jesus from the beginning. It wasn’t just that He could do a miracle; it was how He did the miracle.

What captured the king’s eye was the beauty of Bathsheba, but what captured his soul was the beauty of the Lord. The former led to catastrophe (though God, in His mercy, redeemed it), the latter led to eternity, that is, an eternal relationship.

And when He uttered those words, bowed His head and gave up His spirit, He carried the weight of all sin for all time. He became sin:

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. ( 2 Cor 5:21)

Yes, the wilderness is essentially the story of broken mankind as well as mankind’s redemption.

So, you see, all the way back in Eden, in tasking Adam to name all the creatures God was training Adam to know Him.

Understand, you are not your ‘flesh’. Your flesh, despite its influence on your soul, is not you. When you are saved, you are “one Spirit” with the Lord (See 1 Cor 6:17)

You see, we are all broken. We are born broken – we are born in sin and born to die.

Sometimes, God waits, and we’ve all gotten used to accepting the old adage that He does things ‘in His time’. As we can see above, there will come a time when His mystery is finished and He will proclaim via His angel that there will be no more delay. What’s this mystery?