Faithlessness or Rebellion?

Today, I opted to listen to Fukuda-Sensei's sermon without an English-translation headset.  I don't do this every Sunday, since I wind up missing so many details along the way, but Fukuda-Sensei is an engaging and animated preacher so I feel like I probably miss out a little bit when I just listen to the headset, too.  My hope is to one day have strong enough kikitori (listening comprehension) skills in Japanese that I'll never need to use the headset again... for now, the occasional Sunday will have to do.

While I am unsure if it was a main point, one point that Fukuda-Sensei made that I caught and that really struck me was that Moses had actually seen God's back, yet still disobeyed God's instructions for drawing water out of the rock later on.

We (well... I know I) tend to say "if only God would show Himself to me as He did to Moses.  THEN, I would stop being a lazy follower; stop being luke-warm; stop being disobedient."  Yet, the account of Moses' disobedience at Meribah takes such a mindset head-on and points out that even a man who had dialogued directly with God on numerous occasions and had in fact, seen God's physical presence could be every bit as untrusting and disobedient as modern believers.  The problem, then, may have less to do with a lack of certainty about God's existence and presence in our lives, and more to do with a lack of proper respect for this fact.  Bear in mind that we all have eternity placed in our hearts--all humans, regardless of who they are, have a built-in awareness of their creator; a God-shaped hole in their hearts that can only be filled with a life spent pursuing God (though it is often spent pursuing other, ill-fitting and ultimately unsatisfying things).  The bottom line is, on some level (perhaps undetectable to even ourselves) we know God exists, and we know He is worthy of glory.  However, our hearts are rebellious and we choose to fight or flee much more easily than we choose to follow.

Asking for a sign; asking for God to reveal Himself may seem like an earnest and sensible prayer, but perhaps the more important prayer is that our hearts are transformed to follow and obey a God who has already revealed Himself to us, time and time again.