Staying on Mission with God in Face of Personal (and Very Long) Disappointment

Moses had a tough calling, a near-impossible job. He led God’s people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. He led a rebellious bunch of gripers and whiners through dangerous and inhospitable territory for 40 long years. He interceded for people when God wanted to destroy them. His fellow leaders—including even his siblings Aaron and Miriam on one occasion—opposed his leadership. The people threatened to kill Moses over their shared hardships.
 
In Numbers 20, near the end of their 40-year-long journey, the Israelites arrived at Kadesh Barnea, located on the southern border of Canaan. As we know, Kadesh is significant because it was the Israelites’ original gateway to the Promised Land (Numbers 13:26). But it is also where the Waters of Meribah were located, where Moses disobeyed God by smacking the rock with his staff—not once but twice—to produce water for the people, instead of speaking to the rock as God had instructed him (Numbers 20:7-12). As a result of his disobedience, God refused Moses entry to the Promised Land. God told Moses: “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” (Numbers 20:12). It would seem, for Moses, a case of “so-near-and-yet-so-far”: He has led the people of Israel for 40 years to this point, they’re on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, only for God to slam the door shut on Moses!
 
Conventionally understood, Kadesh/Meribah is where Moses blew it, where he dishonored God, where he got disbarred from the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 3:23-28, Moses shared that he’d begged God to change His mind, but God rebuked him: Enough! Don’t speak to Me anymore about this matter! (Deuteronomy 3:26-27). But it may surprise you, as it did me, that God presumably already had in mind to ban or embargo Moses from the Promised Land 40 years prior on an earlier visit also to Kadesh—when the 10 of the 12 spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter Canaan returned with a damaging report that discouraged the rest of the Israelites from taking the land (Numbers 13:26-32). Only Caleb and Joshua, the 2 dissenting spies, were willing to do it. Four decades after that tragic event—on the cusp of Israel’s eventual entry into the Promised Land—Moses recollected the occasion, in Deuteronomy 1:37-40: “Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, ‘You shall not enter it, either. But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it... But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.’” 
 
Moses’ words here in Deuteronomy 1 are very telling: Arguably, it was at the very start of Israelites’ 40-year trek—the first time they were at Kadesh—where God said NO to Moses about entering the Promised Land, not 4 decades later, on their return to Kadesh/Meribah! Despite joining Caleb and Joshua in urging the Israelites to trust God and to take the Promised Land as God had commanded them, Moses nevertheless received God’s censure and was blocked from entering the Promised Land. Moses lived with this tragic reality and gross disappointment for 40 long years! Meanwhile, he still had an important job to do: He had to lead and pastor a disgruntled people, prepare them for the Promised Land, and mentor Joshua to replace himself as Israel’s leader.
 
For 4 long decades, Moses lived with personal disappointment while doing his job as best he could, without letting it distract him from his calling. Moses kept his focus, he stayed on mission with God, he carried out his responsibilities. However disillusioned he might have felt, Moses endured and persevered, he accepted God’s terms and conditions without resentment, he stayed faithful and obedient to God all the way through, he retained the joy of the LORD as his strength.  Moses wasn’t perfect: He was known as the humblest person on earth (Numbers 12:3) but he had quite the temper, e.g., smashing tablets at Horeb and smacking rocks at Kadesh/Meribah. To me, Moses was/is a rockstar, but this revelation of his long-suffering obedience—in the face of a long disappointment—blew me away! Do we have personal disappointments arising from promises God gave that have remained either unrealized or worse, like Moses’ case, which God seems to have rescinded, sometimes unfairly it seems? 
 
Still, it was so good and gracious of God to grant Moses a shot at standing in the Promised Land—when Jesus met Moses and Elijah at the Mount of Transfiguration on Israeli soil (Matthew 17:1-3)! I’ve always thought, OK, great that God finally granted Moses his wish, but after 1,500yrs?! But that’s probably incorrect: I’d like to think Moses stood with Jesus in the Promised Land right after he (Moses) died atop Mount Nebo/Pisgah and entered eternity into God’s presence, where time no longer exists. All that Moses endured on earth was worth it, because the LORD is worthy of honor and worship!