What very human reactions we see here! The people of Israel had been saved by the Red Sea parting before them. Prior to that miraculous event, they had witnessed many other impossible acts. They had experienced God leading His people through many difficult situations and providing for their every need. The beginning of this passage sees a rather exasperated God who hears yet more moans that life is not as the people think it should be. In fact, they say that life was better when they were in Egypt where they lived as slaves and were treated abominably. The manna which God was providing every day was no longer to their taste and they wanted meat. Things are not much better with Moses either. He basically tells God that he has had enough of the complaining of these people he has been made responsible for and wants to die. When God tells him that He will give the people meat, Moses appears to doubt God’s power to do this. Surely he has seen enough miracles to know that God can do it?

So, God decides to deal with these situations. He provides Moses with Elders to share the leadership with him and He gives them part of Moses’ spiritual authority. For the people, He teaches them a lesson by providing them with so much meat every day that they are totally sick of it.

We have an expression: “the grass is always greener … “the idea that our neighbour, or someone in the church, or our boss or … is having a better time than we are. It manifests itself sometimes in wanting to return to a previous time or situation where we think life was better for us. The fact is, however, that we are all on a journey of discovery about ourselves and our relationship with God. The past is over and gone and the future is yet to come. We can only live in the present moment and work out our salvation here and now.

However, when we do find that life is not to our taste, we have the example of Moses and the Israelites who took their complaints to God. We have recently been studying psalms together in these notes and the psalmists certainly told God of their feelings in no uncertain terms sometimes. God is our Father and wants our honesty in prayer. Then He will decide how to answer our complaints.

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A moment of honesty:

Is there anything you want to complain to God about? Do you need to ask Him about anything or be angry with Him about anything?

Take some time now.