Have you ever noticed how easy it is to catch a fellow believer in an error, or how often we see another follower fall into a sin of some sort? In those cases I most often find myself thinking that I probably could have handled it better than did that one. He or she should have known better than to allow that to happen, right?

Can you imagine how awful Moses felt when he blew it? He had been personally involved with the God of Israel in ways no other living person had experienced, and even though they had committed every sin in the book, God still sought to be their God. They—even in their sinfulness—needed water, and God told Moses to gather the folk together and to speak to the rock for the release of water for them.

We read of it in Numbers 20.10-12: He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’ But Moses was angry at them for their multiple failures, and he sought to shock them into the reality of God’s love. So rather than to speak to the rock, he chose to express his anger at them by striking the rock. The word continues: Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. Moses got an emotional release and people got water.

The price of correcting the sinners was dear: But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’ God lost his honor and Moses lost his blessing by his need to justify his position of authority rather than to simply trust God to handle the matter. TRUST GOD TO HANDLE IT!