Deuteronomy 1:37-41: a reflection

37Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, “You also shall not go in there. 38Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39Moreover your little ones, whom you said would be captured or killed, your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, shall go in there. I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. 40But as for you, turn, and take your journey into the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.” 41Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against the LORD. We will go up and fight, according to all that the LORD our God commanded us.” Every man of you put on his weapons of war, and presumed to go up into the hill country.

When Israel refused to enter the promised land at God's command, out of fear, God told them the consequence: this generation would not enter, but would turn back into the wilderness. And then the people did something revealing. Suddenly they changed their minds, We have sinned, they said; we will go up and fight, just as the LORD commanded us. And they put on their weapons and presumed to go up into the hill country, this time when God had told them not to. Having refused to go when God said go, they now insisted on going when God said stop.

Notice the presumption in this reversal. It looks, on the surface, like repentance and obedience, we will go up and fight. But it was actually its own kind of disobedience: acting on their own timing rather than God's. When God said go, they refused; now that God said stay, they went. In both cases, they did what they wanted rather than what God said when he said it. Their belated willingness to fight was not obedience but presumption, doing the right-looking thing at the wrong time, on their own schedule.

That is a subtle but real danger. Obedience is not merely doing the right thing, but doing what God says when he says it, in his timing, not ours. It is possible to refuse God's call in the moment he gives it, and then, later, on our own schedule, to insist on doing something that looks obedient but is actually presumption, running ahead of or behind God's timing. God's will has a when as well as a what. Do not presume to act on your own timing. Obey God when he speaks, in his timing, rather than refusing in the moment and then presuming to act on your own schedule.

Lord, Israel refused to go when you said go, and then presumed to go when you said stop, doing their own will on their own timing rather than obeying you. Keep me from that presumption. Help me see that obedience is not merely doing a right-looking thing, but doing what you say when you say it, in your timing, not mine. Guard me from refusing your call in the moment and then presuming to act on my own schedule. Teach me to obey you when you speak, in your timing, and to trust your when as well as your what.