February 7, 2022

Exodus 16: 3 (NIV)

The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Memories may be beautiful, and yet what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget.*

How easy it is to become a spoiled rotten brat. How quickly we forget where we’ve been and who was with us through it all. How human to be such whiners. “Oh, poor us. We’re slaves in Egypt!” And now that God has delivered them, rather than thank him, they snivel about a little hardship in the desert. I guess we could say the grass is always greener back in Egypt.

The Israelites’ selective memory is a vivid illustration of “the critical choice we all face between the immediate pleasures of Egypt and the long-term benefits of walking in God’s will.”* If we are going to walk by faith, we can’t walk by sight – whether it’s hindsight or foresight or just trying to see the road today.

Have you ever been enslaved by anything? A bad habit? Believing a lie? Sin in general? Did God deliver you from it? Would you rather have died there than to face the desert you find yourself in today? Are you going to blame God for your present troubles - or will you remember that if he can facilitate your escape from Egypt, he can certainly provide for you in the wilderness?

Discontent magnifies what is past, and vilifies what is present, without regard to truth or reason.*