Am I Significant?

I opened my Bible to Deuteronomy 34 today. I love this part of the Word. LOVE.

Moses is at the end of his life. He’d just spoken to the people of Israel for the last time in his lifetime. He’d been serving them for 40 years, and it was almost over.

It was time to walk into the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua. He’d been trained by Moses, and he laid hands on him and transferred the anointing.

Moses didn’t get to go in because he didn’t trust God way back in Kadesh. God wanted to show the people the power of words and Moses did it his own way and because of that, He didn’t get to go into the sweet land of promise. (You can read about it here in Numbers chapter 20.)

I think it’s kind of funny, actually, the difference of Moses’ perception of why he wasn’t going in and God’s perspective on it. Anywhere you read Moses’ viewpoint, he tells Israel it’s all their fault. “Because of you…”

But at the end here, God reminds him, “It’s because YOU failed to demonstrate my holiness…”

I wonder if Moses ever admitted that. “Yep. It was my fault.” Selah – (that’s the way my mind works when I read the Word.)

But it didn’t matter. Admit it or not, he wasn’t going in. God still wanted him to see it though. So He took Moses to the top of the mountain and showed him the land. As far as the eye could see, there it was. The Promised Land. The land flowing with milk and honey. Grapes the size of pomegranates. The land of blessings.

I’ve been to the top of a mountain at a crazy time in my life. My parents had been divorced a year or two. We moved from our family home to a not-so-good neighborhood. My parents stopped going to church, but my grandparents kept taking us. I questioned everything.

In the summer between the 4^th and 5^th grades, I went to the Adirondack Mountains to Pastor Dalaba’s homestead with the Missionettes for a week. And we climbed to the top of Crane Mountain.

I’ll never forget it.

Not everyone went to the top. Some leaders stayed farther down the mountain with the ones that didn’t want to go all the way up. But I wanted to go.

It was hard work. Skinny trails. No trails. Rocky places. Mud. Steep climbs. Some places we had to hold hands so no one would fall.

Then, we were at the top and the views were stunning. Breathtaking. It felt like you could see forever.

That view. I’ll never forget that view. Standing on that mountain taking it all in – all 5’1” and 60 pounds of me – I never felt so small and yet so wanted in all my life.

After all, the same God that made that view out of words alone thousands of years earlier thought the world needed one of me too.

Really? One of me? Insignificant me? Me – who was so unsure of everything? The world needed one of me?

Am I that significant?

He thought so. Me…not so much.

And every time I read Deuteronomy 34, I remember. I remember my trip to the mountains and that feeling. I remember that view. I remember the times around the fire at night. Pastor Dalaba talked about Him so personally. I remember the worship. Feeling Him there. He loved me. I was sure of it.