Have you ever felt like God wasn’t providing?
After a miraculous deliverance through the Red Sea, Moses led the people into the Desert Of Shur.
22 For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.
No matter how bad things have been, I am thankful that I have always had access to water.
Lord, let me not take that for granted. Thank you for clean water.
Understandably, the people started to grumble.
25-26 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the (bitter) water and it became sweet. There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
Once again, Moses cried out to the Lord and the Lord answered and provided. He also gave a very specific promise of blessing IF the Israelites did what was asked of them. Whether it was Moses having to ask and then throwing wood in the water or the Israelites having to listen and obey, God often required a person to do something before He acted. He often required participation as part of the condition to his answers.
On the fifteenth day of the second month, the Israelites set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin. Once more, they began to grumble.
16:3 “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.”
Sometimes the discomfort of deliverance can cause people to have selective amnesia about their past.
The Lord provided, but again, wanted to test the Israelites.
4-5 The Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
Moses and Aaron told the Israelites the plan, and they asked what the point was of grumbling to them.
8 “Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”
10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.
I once read Beth Moore’s description of the word glory to be (paraphrased) when the presence of God tangibly manifests in some way.
God wanted to be glorified. He wanted the people to know who He was.
12 The Lord told Moses, “Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.'”
The Lord provided quail and manna and Moses gave the people the Lord’s instructions.
20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
Can you imagine walking between walls of water on dry ground through the Red Sea? Then having bread appear on the ground from God? And yet people still paid no attention to instructions. Oh, that I would not be that stubborn to the Lord’s instructions.
The sixth day came and the people gathered twice as much as instructed so that the seventh day would be a sabbath to the Lord.
27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you people refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”
The Lord instructed them to take an amount of manna and store it away in order to show future generations what the Lord had provided.
35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
As the people set out from the Desert of Sin, they traveled from place to place as the Lord commanded them. While camping in Rephidim, there was no water so they quarreled with Moses again.
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
God told Moses to walk ahead with some of the elders and his rod/staff.
6 “I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.”
Chapter 17 ends with the Amalekites coming to attack the Israelites. Moses told Joshua to choose some men and go fight them while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill with the staff of God.
11-12 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up- one on one side, one on the other- so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
14-16 The Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it.” Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, “For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.”
We now know that the distance between Egypt and Canaan was not so far that it should have taken 40 years. I wonder though if it took 40 years for the people to start trusting and obeying the Lord. After all, it would take a miracle with faith and obedience to enter into the already-occupied land of Canaan. Maybe God needed to know the people were ready for it.
Sometimes God delivers people from a place of slavery, but they wander the rest of their lives in the wilderness because they’re not ready to fully surrender to the Lord in order to enter the promised land.
I believe God still tests us. I believe He will take us as far as we are willing to obey. This is personally my greatest challenge.
Lord, thank you for answering prayers. You are faithful to provide. Your blessings and promises are amazing, yet I can be so stubborn. Let me hear your voice clearly and obey you. May we lay our stubbornness down and trade in our way for yours.
A Walk Through The Bible 