“7 The Lord spoke to Moses, 8 ‘Take the staff and assemble the community. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will yield its water. You will bring out water for them from the rock and provide drink for the community and their livestock.’
9 So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence just as He had commanded him. 10 Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock for you?’ 11 Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
12 But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust Me to show My holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land I have given them.’ 13 These are the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and He showed His holiness to them.”
Numbers 20:7-13
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Frustration is a corrosive force. It eats holes in our defense, it undermines our intentions and creates weak points in our witness. It can degrade the best of people into behavior that they normally would never participate in, and can cause a torrent of ugliness to spring up in an otherwise beautiful, God-ordained moment, as we see here with Moses and Aaron.

Sometimes, people in leadership succumb to the base attitudes that they are most bothered by in those they are supposed to be examples for when tensions are high. No one is perfect, and as James says, we all stumble in many ways (3:2). And even paragons like Moses and Aaron were subject to sin and stumbling, as we all are, but there is no excuse for directly disobeying God, no matter who you are. God does not allow for sin. He doesn’t look at us in a fallen moment and say, “Don’t sweat it, I understand.” He doesn’t. He does not sin. He does not find it acceptable. In fact, He tells us that He will always provide a way out of it (1 Corinthians 10:13) if we will be faithful and trust what He promises.

Moses and Aaron were in one of those all too familiar ‘last straw’ moments with the Israelite people. Surely, they thought that the people would have seen enough and understood enough that they would know that God wasn’t going to just let them all die out there in the wilderness. Those who rebelled and wouldn’t go into the promised land? Yes, but most of them were gone at this point. But those who remained were still stirring up dissent, and Moses had had enough. So, rather than trusting God and doing things His way, Moses seized a holy moment and focused it on his own anger and frustration rather than on the faithfulness of God, and he reduced himself down to the level of a show-boating, pagan magician.

Moses could have entered the Promised Land with the people if he had simply let God lead in that moment, but the seizure of the moment and the distraction from God, combined with his direct disobedience, led to punishment and a great disappointment. Moses could have crossed the Jordan and felt the sweet relief that comes with a fulfilled promise and a deep trust in God, but his anger and frustration ruled the moment rather than God’s will, and so consequences shifted to the negative rather than being a joyful thing.

As we GoLove the world in the Name of Christ, we must trust in God’s plan, God’s way and God’s timing. We aren’t allowed to just make it up as we go along, and let our ‘gut’ guide us. Our ‘gut’ is a misguided agent, led by sin. And frustration is a corrosive that allows that sin nature a greater influence over what could be a beatiful, God-ordained moment. We must pause, breathe, and ask God to lead and make Himself known through us in those moments, rather than degrading into sin and that selfish desire to say ‘I told you so.’ We all stumble in many ways, but that doesn’t mean that we just go on sinning so that grace may increase (Romans 6:1.) Instead, we give that moment over to God and let Him shine over and beyond our frustration, so that His witness in us remains intact, and so that hearts and minds are drawn to His holiness rather than our sin.