LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?
THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
And the people complained. Complaining and grumbling are where most of our self-defeating behaviors and sins against God start. Before human beings first sinned, Satan's way of drawing Eve in was to get her to feel ungrateful: he didn't tell her to focus on all the fruits of the garden that she was able to partake of, but instead he focused her attention on the fruit of the one tree that she wasn't. Here's how I put it in a previous sermon: "Satan tries to take Eve's eyes off of what God’s already given her and get her to focus on the one thing that he said ‘No’ to. See, you can’t tempt someone by letting them feel thankful. You have to make them feel like they’ve been wronged or denied first. That’s what Satan does here. He says to Eve, basically, 'You know this garden of Eden is a lie. You think it’s all good here, but you’re really a victim. You’re being held back. You shouldn’t put up with this.'" When our stories are filled with ways we've been wronged but nothing that we've actually done that contributed to keeping that going, then we are often deceiving ourselves. Whether it's a person, or a church, or a group of people--if their story is mostly about the misfortune that has happened to them (and as the Israelites show, blaming God is not out of the question), the most likely explanation is that they are in need of some help after all: they need help coming to a place of repentance.
And they spoke against Moses. Having come to a place where they could not directly complain against God, they decided to take the more godly route, and direct their grumbling and criticism against their leader instead. So they become overly critical of details of his personal life ("he had married a Cushite -not an Israelite!- woman," Num. 12:1). They insist that he's trying to be a one-man show ("Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?," Num. 12:2). They ignore positive aspects of his character (Num. 12:3). And, with the people and the leadership united, they probably would have been done with Moses then and there, except that God intervened and said "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting..." (Num. 12:4ff). This is not an isolated phenomenon. In most churches that I have gone to, especially the small ones, there are usually some instances where the church would find the blessing of God again if only they would apologize to a former pastor (or a few), and deal with the unhealth now that resulted in mistreatment then. In one previous church that I was at, when we brought our former youth pastor back to give him a public apology, it was like a spiritual weight was lifted. The church instantly grew, and reportedly has not stopped growing since.
Failure to launch. In chapters 13-14, God had told the Israelites to go into the land of Canaan. This was a clear issue of obedience. But they didn't, because they considered many of the logistical issues and found it impractical to do right now: "the people who dwell in the land are strong... the cities are fortified... we saw the descendants of Anak [a tall people] there" (Num. 13:28). We might always find reasons why it's not practical, right now, to do what God has called us to do. We must do it anyway--because 40 years in the wilderness is a long time, and we do not want to be part of the generation that must die out before God can bring the rest of his people into the Land of Promise.
RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?
In this reading, the people find lots of reasons to divide themselves against God, or at least those who are trying to tell them about God, or at least the practicality of following his commandments right now. Here's the solution: to spend time in the presence of God, looking upon God, trusting God, uniting together to carry out the will of God, and going where he calls us to go. We would do so well to stop trying to control things, and instead to just simply walk forward and do what the Bible says. What amazing things could we be part of if we just said, "I want to see things that happened in the Bible happen today," and then we just went out in faith that God would do that? In many ways, following God is simple; we make it complicated.
PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US CLOSER TO GOD?
Here is a suggested prayer prompt: "God, help me not to complicate the path ahead by wishing for the details to be different or wanting more control over the process or finding fault with bits of the journey. Help me to be one of the ones who march on straight to the Promised Land! Bring me into the place where I am peacefully united with you, and where I see you at work, and where I experience the faithfulness and joy of the Lord."
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