By David ReayTuesday 21 May 2013LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
1-3 The whole community was in an uproar,wailing all night long. All the People of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community was in on it: “Why didn’t we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness? Why has GOD brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don’t we just head back to Egypt? And right now!” 4 Soon they were all saying it to one another: “Let’s pick a new leader; let’s head back to Egypt.” (THE MESSAGE)
Some people never catch a cold. They always have ‘a touch of the flu’. It sounds much more significant and can harvest a lot more sympathy. The medical experts tell us that colds and flu are quite different and we surely know when our bodies suffer from influenza rather than the common cold. It is an instance of our tendency to exaggerate,to overstate our case,to intensify our hardship. Which brings us to our passage today. The people of Israel are on the borders of the land promised to them. The reconnaissance party has reported it is a good land,though the inhabitants seem tough nuts to crack. Some even said that compared to those giant inhabitants,they themselves were like grasshoppers.
Which leads to this weeping and wailing. They reckoned they faced certain death. So they figured to go back to the Egyptian captivity they had once so longed to escape. They accused God of plotting to kill them. All this comes from our focus being on our circumstances rather than on the God of our circumstances. True,we face fearful threats at times. But exaggerating them by losing sight of God will not help us. It actually consigned the Israelites to much wilderness wandering.
Life can be hard enough without our exaggerating how hard it is. Not every cold is the flu.
Blessings
David Reay