Silent Failure (or, The Failure of Silence)

And whenever the Ark set out, Moses would shout, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered! Let them flee before you!” [Numbers 10.35]

Just a side note here: The Ark was the guiding force in Israel's journey through the wilderness. Why then, in the verses just preceding this verse, did Moses beg his brother-in-law to stay with them and guide them? Just a question...

Anyway, the point that I would like to explore in the verse mentioned above is that when Israel followed God (the Ark in this case), Moses would ceremonially declare, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered! Let them flee before you!”

Moses' statement was one of faith.

We struggle to know when we are actually following God - I get that as much as anyone. But I wonder how our pursuit of God might be affected if we were so bold as to make a "victory" declaration when we do follow Him?

Surely, we could stand to respond to God and His leading with a little more resolve than we do most of the time. I cannot recount the number of times I have launched out to 'follow God' without any real commitment to whatever it was I felt led to do. A declaration, like Moses', could have positively affected a different resolve from the beginning and therefore affected the overall outcome. However, without such declaration and resolve, my efforts and following God have far too often been nothing more than a whim that, when difficulties arose and I backed off, no one was the wiser - no one had a clue that I had even launched any effort at all to follow God. What a cycle of silent failure!

I wonder if anyone besides me feels this way. But, how could I know? We are all groomed to be a little 'silent' about our faith, aren't we?

And, for the sake of discussion, I am not really feeling a connection with "name it-claim it" in these thoughts. But more so a connection with God to simply declare I will follow Him - and whatever He provides in that context is what He provides...

Father, forgive me for the silent nature of my faith. And forgive me as well for name it-claim it faith where the focus was more on what I got for me than what I did for You.