Complaining Species

For the last several weeks, our Sunday School Class has been studying Exodus. Last week, our teacher asked all of us to write a first-person journal entry as if we were one of the Israelites wandering in the desert. What would we say about our experience?

I've always been a little critical of the Israelites. God did so much for them and, yet, they were an ungrateful people who complained continuously. They groaned that life was better for them back in Egypt and it would be better to be a slave than lost in the wilderness. They complained that they didn't have food, so God provided mannah. Then they complained that they didn't have meat, so God provided fowl. This was all within days of them crossing the Red Sea and watching Pharaoh's armies being destroyed when the waters closed up behind them. How could they experience such tremendous miracles in their midst and still grumble and complain. How could they witness 24-hours a day the presence of Yahweh in the pillar of fire and a cloud, leading them through the desert, and still think they would perish. God's visible presence was with them, and they still doubted.

When I sat at the table on Sunday morning, thinking, pondering in my dramatic way, how the Israelites must have felt, I experienced something completely new. I began to understand their fears. For centuries, they had been separated from their own land and worshipping their God had been a challenge. Although they had maintained their hope, I'm not sure they all really had a deep faith. Their faith was less theirs and more their ancestors. And Moses was leading them. Within their lifetime, he had been an Egyptian, one of their enslavers. Suddenly, they're supposed to trust him and believe that he speaks for this God that they barely know. Everything around them is foreign and scary, even this faith that they are commanded to practice. Suddenly, they are faced with LAWS, RULES. Everything is well-ordered and dictated. This experience had to be mind-boggling.

Add to that human nature. I have a beloved friend that, many years ago, desperately needed a new car, but had no money to buy one. She prayed and prayed and asked the Lord to provide for her. While at work one day and listening to the radio, she participated in a call-in game and won a key to a car. Several keys were given out. Then the key-winners met at a car dealership on a Saturday morning and each tried their key in a brand new car. The one whose key started the car got to drive it home. As you've already guessed, my friend's key started the car. GOD GAVE HER A CAR. It was amazing and miraculous, but God's provision for her was steadfast. She needed a car and had no other way to obtain one - God provided.

All of us have experienced miracles in our lives, but does that keep us from complaining for the rest of our lives? Of course not, because we're human. We can experience a miracle like the one my friend did and, the very next day, complain to the Lord about some other area of our life. All of us have done it. We're a complaining species. It seems to be almost impossible to hold the memory of God's miracles close enough that we think of them instead of our problems.

Can I really blame the Israelites for their complaining in the desert? God didn't. He faithfully, time after time, responded to their complaining with acts of love. He does the same for us today. He understands our humanness, like a parent who watches their tired child acting out. While we know it's wrong, we understand what's happening to them and are filled with compassion. Instead of spanking, we take them in our arms, snuggle them close, and sing a gentle lullabye. Does God do any less for us? Did he do any less for his children in the desert?

I don't want to be a complaining, grumpy child. I want to be worthy of the miracles and faithfulness of our Lord. I want to hold his love for me and provision for me so close that my focus is constantly on Him. I want to BAN grumbling and complaining. I want to focus on all the blessings God has bestowed on me.

I want to be less human and take on the image of Our Father. I want to remember always the example of the Israelites in the wilderness and work hard to be different.