2-6-15. Exodus 16:1-3. Look Beyond the Disparaging Remarks To See The Real Need – my devotional
2-6-15. Exodus 16:1-3. Look Beyond the Disparaging Remarks To See The Real Need – my devotional
Exodus 16:1-3 Kevin E. Jesmer 2-6-15
The nation of Israelites needed to grow spiritually by remembering who God is and how he works. They needed to also control their disparaging words. Look at Exodus 16:1-3, “The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
The people had come out of slavery in Egypt. The ancient Israelites had been traveling through the wilderness for a month and a half. They were breathing the fresh air of freedom for the first time in more than four centuries. God had done a wonderful, miraculous deliverance among them. They beheld the power and glory of the Lord. They experienced God’s love on so many fronts. They also just experienced God’s great deliverance, when he made the waters clean for them to drink and led them to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees. God was indeed gracious to his people and he was continually delivering them and training them in faith, which often included being delivered at the very last moment. The people needed to remember who God is and how he has been faithfully leading them and lean on his everlasting arms.
But life for the people, in the arid desert, was relentlessly difficult. And now the Israelites faced another challenge. They were running out of food. They had reached the end of their resources and felt that they were about to starve to death. Maybe they were about to starve to death. But they needed to remember that this was another of those “training moments”. They should have remembered how God has been working in events in the past. They should have hung on in hope, praying, trusting and encouraging one another, knowing that their deliverance and blessings were just around the corner.
But they were not quite there yet. That is an uber-spiritual standard. It is a goal. That is the level that they needed to hope in and strive towards. In the mean time God was willing to meet them where they were and help them to grow and mature spiritually through this difficult event.
They were saying some disparaging things here. They were saying that they would rather be hacked with swords and pierced with arrows and be driven into the sea to drown at the hands of the Egyptian cavalry, than be where they were now at that moment. They began to remember slave life in Egypt with nostalgia. They forgot the cruel whip of the slave driver, the murdered babies, the long hours of back-breaking labor, and the ever-present fear. They only thought about the security of three meals a day and would rather suffer endlessly, living as slaves with full stomachs, then be in their present situation. And so, in their hunger, they grumbled to Moses, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! Why did you bring us out here in this desert to die of starvation?” (16:1-3)
People do say some disparaging things when they are desperate or frustrated. At the time they may truly mean it. But in their deep heart of hearts they really don’t. They just want to vent and be heard. They want to hear wise and encouraging words. They want hope and direction. A truly great leader and counselor needs to see beyond the gripes and see what people are really struggling with. And then they need the wisdom of Solomon to help them. I truly think that this is what God does with us.
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