God's Instructions

Reading about God’s early instructions to Moses,
I am struck by how terribly unkind God’s instructions are.

Moses obediently throws down his staff.
It becomes a snake so feared that Moses fled.

And God tells him to pick it up,
Not safely behind its head, but
Dangerously, by the tail, where the whip of muscle
Could sink fangs into the hand that grasped it.

Moses obeys.
He is safe.

Next God tells him to put his hand in his shirt.
He obeys.
It comes out leprous.
What kind of a God rewards his obedient servant
With a dread disease?

He is, in the end, healed.

What kind of God sends his obedient servant
To the ruler with a sign easily duplicated
By the magicians of the court?
Why is it necessary to have Moses stumble away, embarrassed?
Why necessary to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

What kind of God takes the lives of the people he is saving
And makes them horribly worse for a time,
So that even the faithful doubt his obedient servant?

The Psalmist says that He Himself knows our frame;
He remembers that we are but dust.

Why, then, must our frame be tested,
Our dust tormented?

I rail against this story,
Even as I stand amazed at the intensity,
The trial,
The faithfulness,
The seeking of both God and man.