3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
Sometimes we can get so stubborn that we suffer from that stubbornness. The Lord wants to bless His people. He is providing them with a land that is filled with abundance. But they have rejected Him with their actions. In less than forty days they have made an idol and begun worshiping it after the customs of Egypt, the land from which the Lord delivered them. The punishment might seem small. They still get the land, but the Lord will not be with them. What good is a material good if the source of all you blessing rejects you! Who would protect them if the Lord was not with them? They did not know how to fight. Sometimes our kids get stiff-necked. They say “no” without really considering the consequences. They say “no” just to say it. They want to be their own person, so they rebel. You can see the rebellion in their body stance and their gestures. Their stiff-neck can be seen. If they are a teenager, you are probably close to losing the battle. But if they are younger, you can still bend their will. You can teach them to consider their rebellion and its costs through appropriate discipline. The nation of Israel is still an infant, still learning to obey and the consequences of disobedience. This is often an on-going lesson for us, one that gets repeated all too often. We are not so different than the Israelites. We too can quickly turn toward rebellion in an instant. God promises us such abundance, but we settle for leftover scraps. We must learn to submit to the Lord, to bend our neck, to yield our will. And this is a difficult proposition.
The Arnold Journey 