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When trials come and obstacles are in our way, God wants us to look up, get our eyes off the things in front of us and look to him. It’s counter intuitive, and like many things of God, seem to be backward. But God said he will use the foolish things of man to confound the wise.
There’s an interesting story in Numbers 21 (verses 4-8) where the people were once again complaining and grumbling against God. He wants to teach them something and get them to stop complaining. So what does he do, he sends a bunch of poisonous snakes into the camp. Imagine snakes and snakes everywhere. You can’t get away from them. They’re biting you, and they’re biting your neighbors, and your family members, and your kids. The scripture doesn’t say how many die, but it’s enough that the people are ready to be done with the snakes and repent. And what’s God’s solution? He tells Moses to make an bronze serpent and put it up on a pole.
When the people stop looking at the poisonous snakes underfoot and instead look up at this bronze serpent Moses is parading around the camp they will be healed. Great idea, God. We’re trying to walk delicately around the camp, carefully watching where the snakes are so we won’t get bitten and die, and you want us to look up in the air at a bronze snake of all things. Yeah right.
But the thing is, if they got bitten and they looked up they wouldn’t die. They would be healed. God wants us to look up, too. Instead of focusing on our problems, focus instead on God’s solution. You’ll know the snakes are there. After all, God is having you look at a bronze serpent on a pole. Your problems won’t go away immediately, but God will deliver you from the harm they might cause.
John said, “and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:14-15).
And Jesus said, “if I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). Jesus doesn’t take us out of our situations, but when we look to him, when we as Christians lift him up, he is able to heal us from our situations. Even when they are difficult, when they hurt, and when we think they are unbearable. He is able to heal, and deliver, and save.
The wisdom of the world says, focus on your problems and you will overcome them. God tells us, focus on him, and your problems won’t control you. God will deliver you. Sometimes the deliverance comes in the form of healing, and sometimes the deliverance comes in us having the strength to get through in spite of our circumstances, obstacles, even the threat of death.
In Acts chapter 7 we have Stephen, preaching the gospel message so powerfully that his listeners stone him to death. But Stephen had that upward look. It’s written of Stephen, “he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (Vs. 55). He wasn’t removed from his circumstance, but he was able to overcome with peace and forgiveness. And he saw God.
Paul writes in first Corinthians 1:18-27
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent… Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men… But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;