Every parent knows the count. One. Two. And nobody wants to find out what happens at three. Many of us assume God counts too, and that we are somewhere around two. But the creed we read together every week says something different: the LORD is slow to anger. Numbers 14 is where Israel had to decide whether they believed it.
Standing at the edge of the promised land, Israel heard ten frightened spies and wept all night. Underneath the grumbling was a belief about God. Moses later named it for their children: “Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt.” After the plagues, the sea, the manna, and the mountain, they still suspected him. Their problem was not a lack of information. It was a suspicious heart.
And yet the God they accused is the one who refused to destroy them. Moses prayed God’s own words back to him, starting with “slow to anger,” and God pardoned. His patience is not weakness. It is his power, holding back the anger we deserve, because he is merciful, gracious, and abounding in steadfast love. Forgiven people can still live with what they chose, and a generation wandered for forty years. But God’s patience outlasted their unbelief and kept the promise for their children.
We rarely say “God hates me,” but we can believe it without saying it. We read hardship as a verdict. We tiptoe around God as if he has a short temper. And we drift back toward whatever used to have power over us, because from the wilderness, Egypt always looks better than it was.
More information will not heal that. Only a clearer look at God’s heart will. So God came himself. Jesus walked into the wilderness for forty days and trusted his Father where Israel did not, and then went to the cross to carry what we could not. If God gave up his own Son for us, he does not hate us. By his Spirit we can call him Father, and take one more step toward the land.