No Whining

“The people complained and turned against Moses!” Same song, second verse in the musical known as Exodus. And what you and I must learn from this cast of Israelites is that nothing is as polar opposite to trust as complaint. But nothing is more precious to God than our trust, especially when the evidence is against trusting in that given moment. More than anything—more than sacrifice, more than service, more than singing, trust says, “I love you” to God. On the other hand,  Nothing says, “I can’t depend on you” like whining. Choose trust—no one who ever did has lived to regret it!

The Journey// Focus: Exodus 15:22-25

Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the desert of Shur. They traveled in this desert for three days without finding any water. When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink. So they called the place Marah (which means “bitter”). Then the people complained and turned against Moses. “What are we going to drink?” they demanded. So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. Moses threw it into the water, and this made the water good to drink.

There is nothing so odious to God as his people complaining when things don’t go their way. On the other hand, there is nothing so pleasing to God as his people trusting him in the midst of things not going their way. Whining or worship, two polar opposite choices we are given in any set of circumstance—and two choices that have far reaching consequences in our journey of faith.

Now let’s be fair to the Israelites in Exodus 15. Even though they had just been delivered from Egypt in the most extraordinary way—remember, the ten plagues, and to cap it off, the parting of the Red Sea—they were now three days into the desert on their way to Canaan and they had no water. Imagine carrying your little ones, who are now parched and crying for water, and you can do nothing about it. Imagine being a nursing mother, or a father herding your livestock and your four little ones, and you have nothing to quench their extreme thirst, and no prospects of water in sight. Imagine thinking you and your loved ones are going to die of thirst—literally! You think you wouldn’t complain against the decisions your leader had made to put you and your family in this predicament? Think again!

But let’s also be fair to God. He must have been disappointed that the Israelites had so quickly forgotten his mighty hand of provision, yet he responds so graciously to their whining. He didn’t yell at them; he didn’t punish them. He had pity on them and provided safe, cool, life-giving water by instructing Moses to throw a tree into the bitter pool of Marah—and it was cleansed. You think that prefigures the cleansing, life-saving power of another tree upon which the Water of Life was crucified? Then God goes a step further and covenants yet again, in response to their trust, to provide them with life and health. (Exodus 15:25-26)

Now, why didn’t God just provide water for them right away? Why put them through such a painful ordeal? I don’t know—he is God and I am not. But I suspect that Exodus 15:25 is the key: to test their faithfulness to him. The Israelites had 400 years of Egypt in their system, and God had to systematically remove it from them in order to have a people unto himself—a people who had come to trust in him ruthlessly. In fact, in Deuteronomy 8, as Moses is recounting their journey as they near the Promised Land he offers this retrospective on these very events:

Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good. So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. (Deuteronomy 8:1-6)

The people were desperate, and in their desperation, they acted out of fear, not faith. And if we were to be honest about it, we would have been right with them. But God graciously, mercifully overlooked their grumbling in the moment and gave them what they needed. But it was a test, and he expected them to grow in their trust through a test they had failed. By the way, isn’t it true that wise students learn most from failed tests while unwise just keep on failing? Later on, the Israelites failed again, and this time their complaining was met with discipline. (see Numbers 14 and 16) Keep that in mind.

The point being, the life of faith will be full of tests that will lead us to either whine, which, at its core, is distrust, or worship, which at its core, is trust. But behind it all, which we must keep at the forefront of our minds, is the faithfulness of a God who will never fail us. He will stretch us, but he will never ditch us. And because of his impeccable trustworthiness, we can, should and must choose trust over complaint—100% of the time. That is not easy, since we still live in earthbound bodies of flesh that are prone to self-centeredness and whininess, but it is eminently doable and infinitely wise.

Yes, God will stretch us, but no, he will never ditch us. So, no matter what, lean into God!