I started reading the Bible from the beginning this year, not reading every verse, but looking for God’s “story” and people’s relationship with Him. I’m in the middle of Numbers and it is incredible how much the Israelites complained! They saw God part the Red Sea, kill their enemies and lead them with towers of smoke and fire and they’re like, “Let’s go back to Egypt where we were slaves and God never even spoke to us”
And then their leaders go up on the mountain and eat and drink with God and even SEE HIS FACE and then they come back down and make a statue of a cow and worship it. That is NOT what they saw when they were in heaven! How can one forget so easily who God is?
Every chance they get, they tell God they wish He would have left them in Egypt. They complain about the miracle food God sends. They complain when there is no water. If God hadn’t intervened by showing His glory once again they would have stoned Caleb and Joshua just for saying, “We can take this land that God has promised us!"
They get so mixed up that they go so far as to call Egypt, the land of slavery, the “land flowing with milk and honey” instead of the promised land which they have never even set foot on and don’t even know what they are missing!
God is truly patient and forgiving. I”m a complainer too. And how often to I act like a life of sin is better than what God has promised in Christ and in our reward to come.
