40 Days on Your Face

Read Deuteronomy 9-10
 
Deuteronomy 9:16-18 When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes. 18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking him to anger.
 
COULD there be any more dedicated servant leader than Moses? How does one grasp the reality of his passionate petitions for his people? Lying on the ground praying with no food, no water – it is not humanly possible. Certainly God’s presence empowered Moses to prayer. Why do you think Moses would do this?
    Oh, wait a minute. What if my loved ones were living lives opposed to God? What if God threatened to annihilate them? Would I so purposefully seek God’s mercy? Does it matter if it is 20 days or 40 days – or any specific number?
    Forty is a number God has chosen to demonstrate repentance, worship and cleansing. Forty days of rain washed the sin from the earth (Genesis 7). Israel was judged to 40 years in the Wilderness. Jesus battled the devil 40 days in the wilderness (Luke 4). In his despair, Elijah traveled 40 days to meet with God (1 Kings 19). Forty days of cleansing, of resisting evil, of repentance…the struggle is enormous…the struggle is for life…the struggle is constant.
    Consider, also, how God has transformed Moses’ heart. Moses was on the ground for a people who had more than once made him impatient and angry. God had transformed Moses’ resistant, judging heart to a great, sacrificial love for Israel, even as they disobeyed.
    Love is why Moses didn’t give up. He reflected God’s Holy Love, the same love God extended to him. Love God, and love others. God’s will is done on earth as he forgives Israel and moves them toward their future. Live long in the land.
    Do you need to meet with God? Who in your family needs your loving intercession? How do you respond? Is if for a minute? Is it once a day? Once a week? Once a year? Or is it “prostrate for 40 days”?
 
1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray continually.