What Was So Wrong About the Israelites' Complaints?
I grew up in the church. My mom says I was saved at the tender age of four and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t passionately love the Lord.
I do, however, remember confusion with the stories I heard from the Bible.
Many of us have a bit of a “holier than thou” attitude when it comes to our Israelite forerunners who complained in the wilderness. But as a child, I remember thinking, “Gee, if I were hot, wandering around in the wilderness without food or water, I’d complain too! I mean, I wasn’t too thrilled last night when Dad and Mom drove right past Pizza Hut on ‘Kids Eat Cheap night.’”
We know that the common explanation is that He had done so many miracles for them along the way, they should have been more grateful and trusting. There is some merit in this theory, but I believe it only tells part of the story. #ChristianBlog #StudyingTheBible
Let’s be honest, the needs of the Israelites were pretty basic. And faced with the fear of dying from thirst and hunger and watching our children do likewise, we would probably be brought to complaints, too.
It makes me wonder, what was so wrong with the Israelites’ complaints? What was it about this grumbling that really got under the Lord’s skin?
We know that the common explanation is that He had done so many miracles for them along the way, they should have been more grateful and trusting. There is some merit in this theory, but I believe it only tells part of the story.
If you and I were Israelites who had just come out of slavery in Egypt where all we had ever known was the cruel hand of a master, I think we would also be tempted to think of God as merely being our new Master: cold, cruel and unmoved except by wearying complaining. Why would we treat this Master any differently than our Egyptian masters?
The real problem behind the Israelites’ complaints is the fact that they are complaints. They are not requests made to a benevolent Father with whom they had a relationship of trust and honor. They were the complaints of a slave made to a harsh and distant Master. Their words became the exaggerated, inflammatory accusations meant to move a heartless ruler. Their needs were legitimate, but their hearts failed to submit to being molded from slaves to children.
We don’t have to succumb to the same temptation as our wilderness wandering, Israelite counterparts. We can, as God’s children, trustingly ask our loving Father for what we need, knowing that in His goodness and faithfulness, He will respond with giving us what is best for us. #LifeQuotes #ChristianBlog
The complaints that punctuate the story of the wilderness wanderers are interspersed among miraculous interventions from a Father trying to teach His children that they need only ask and trust. The same is true for us. Our lives are punctuated with moments in which we desperately need the Lord to intervene. Those moments should bring our minds to remembrance of when He has intervened, and based on those recollections, we need only to ask and trust.
Are we treating the Lord as a cruel Master or as a faithful and caring Father? We can, as God’s children, trustingly ask our loving Father for what we need, knowing that in His goodness and faithfulness, He will respond with giving us what is best for us.
“Yahweh is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.” Psalm 23:1-3
For more on God’s “Life Laid Down,” click HERE!