Deuteronomy 10:1-2 (NIV) At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”

It must have been so frustrating for Moses to deal with all of the exiles that came out of Egypt when the Lord used him to deliver them from slavery. You would think that they would be so humbled and so appreciative for what the Lord had done but when you read the Book of Exodus, you find out that most of what they did was complain about everything. Many of them even dared to say that they wished that they had never left Egypt! The conditions that they were living in while being slaves in Egypt were absolutely miserable. How could they even say that they wanted to go back there? Remember that it was their cries that the Lord heard, which caused Him to have compassion on them and to deliver them (Exodus 3:7). They complained about God and they complained about Moses. And if that wasn’t enough, they then convinced Aaron to make a golden calf for them to worship and began partying like pagans while Moses was up on the mountain of God getting the Ten Commandments from Him.

When Moses descended from the mountain and saw what they were doing, he was so upset that he threw the stone tablets that the Lord Himself had written the Ten Commandments on to the ground, breaking them to pieces. After God brought judgement on a number of the exiles and the smoke had cleared, I’m sure that Moses must have been worried about what he had done. He had broken the tablets that God wrote on with His own finger. You would think that he would have been super-careful with those tablets, considering them as holy and sacred. But he let his frustration with the people get the better of him and he reacted, destroying the stone tablets in the process. Now what? How in the world was he going to explain that to God?

But it turns out that he didn’t have to. God understood that he was human and that he was frustrated and that he had good reason to be. As a matter of fact, it was Moses that talked God out of destroying all the people because of their great sin against Him (Exodus 32:9-13). God did not even correct or rebuke him. All He did was to tell Moses to chisel out two more stone tablets so that He could write the commandments on them again to replace the ones that Moses broke. God understands our humanness. God understands our frustrations and He gives us space to be able to emote. As long as we don’t cross the line into sin (such as letting the sun go down on our anger, etc.), He allows us to have our human moments. I’m so glad that He does because I have had a ton of human moments in my life. How about you? We serve an awesome, patient and compassionate God! Don’t ever take Him for granted because there is no one else like Him. He is great, mighty and omnipotent, yet still tender, loving and kind. He understands.

Pastor Joey Vazquez