Numbers 11

What a significant chapter this is. First how easy it is for us to complain about what we don’t have even in the midst of the blessings that God has given us. It really is opposed to the faith that God calls us to, to trust Him for our lives and for our provisions. We also have to be careful who we listen to and who we let influence us. The rabble with them crave other food. Could these be Egyptians that joined the Jews after they saw the plagues or others not considered official parts of the Israelite community? But they start convincing the people to want something more than the miraculous provision of manna that God had sent. In their complaining, they even encourage a warped sense of what Egypt was for the Jews. Eating all this good food? Well what about the hard toil under the slave master’s whip? We have to be careful about the things we start believing about circumstances when thoughts of complaining come into our hearts. How important it is to be thankful for all that God is and all that God provides to guard against complaining. We can pray for what we desire that might fix situations or make life better, but we remain content with where we are, particularly when God or our choices have put us there. We need to trust Him for what He is doing rather than complain about what we have or don’t have and make the right choices that may lead us to a better place. And yet in all this, how important it is to get help. Yes, Moses should have trusted God for how He would supply wisdom and leadership to guide the people, and how much better this delegation of leadership would have been if it came in the context of seeking God for a solution rather than complaining about where God had put him. We have to watch our hearts as life gets hard and the tasks and people around us become challenging, especially when we are leaders. But how God answers is amazing, especially as God’s Spirit rests on the guys on the list but who remain in the camp. As Moses tells Joshua his desire that everyone would have the Spirt, we should appreciate that that is exactly what God has given us a believers through Jesus Christ. And what an encouragement to believe God for the miracles He can do when He says, are my arms too short? In other words, is there anything I can’t do? No there isn’t. And if you say you are going to bring meat or do another kind of miracle, we can trust that He will. Because in the end, we need to watch what we wish for.. Because when our desires are misaligned and we seek things we really shouldn’t, that thing will often become bad to us once our desire is fulfilled.