Once I heard this wonderfully sarcastic line from a movie:
“aw…. are you hurt? Let’s call the WAAAAAmbulence!!!” it gets me everytime,
because there are those of us that probably clog up the “WAAAAmbulence” phone
line.
When I read the Old Testament, I am always
dumbfounded by how much the Israelites complained. God delivered them out of
Egypt, even parted the Red Sea
for them (I can just hear the women now…”ugh! Crossing that seabed is going to
be a nightmare! Its going to be muddy, and the kids will get filthy, couldn’t
God have just created a bridge for us instead?”). There is no doubt about it-
the Israelites didn’t know how to be thankful for what they had, and what they
got taken out of.
It’s so
easy for us to criticize them, isn’t it? But when you think about it- we are
really no better than they were. God delivers us from one struggle just to hear
us cry and bemoan the next set of problems in our lives! We don’t take the time
to sincerely thank God for the blessings that he gives. We need to stop
complaining long enough to see the blessings that we receive from God daily.
Thanksgiving is this month, and as
is tradition, we sit and think about what we are grateful for. I, myself, am
thankful for a great many things, but even I forget to thank God for some
stuff. For instance, we should take the time to THANK God for struggles and
hurdles, instead of complaining about them all the time. These things are a
normal, natural occurrence of living in a sin stained world; and whether our
problems are from our own stupidity, or just a “spiritual growth spurt” of
sorts, shouldn’t matter.
Numbers14:26-29
says “The Lord said to Moses and
Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I
have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As
surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard
you say: In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years
old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.”(NIV)
A good friend of mine was preaching
the other day and said “God brings us out of a tough situation, but he can just
as easily put us back. “ The Israelites were this close to the promise land when God declared that the whiners
and complainers wouldn’t live to see it. When we are disobedient and whine
about every little thing in our lives, it displeases the Lord. And if you don’t
want your corpse to fall in whatever ‘desert’ you’re currently wandering
through, I suggest we all start taking the time to thank God for everything-
even the difficult situations in our lives.
By: Lacey Slifkoff
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