Rabbles

Yesterday, we attended church. It was the last installment of the series, “LOST”. This is not to talk about that though, since Pastor Sonny already tackled that yesterday. Hehehe…

It was my first day ( for the nth time) of discussing One2One with a small group leader, her name is Glo. It was great having been attending church for a long time after I “backslid”, I never joined small group until yesterday. There, I was given a Bible calendar to have a guide to my Bible -reading.

This morning, I read about Numbers 10-11, and was touched deeply. This talks about how the Israelites trusted and obeyed God in the beginning but complained and ranted to Him in the end. Numbers 10 talks about how God commanded Moses to tell Israelites to like follow the cloud. Everytime the cloud lifts and leaves the Israelites follow and as soon as the cloud rests, they camp in that place. They obeyed God, they follow the cloud, camp where the cloud rests even if it takes a month, a year or even decade before the cloud will lift again. It was good obedience , but later in chapter 11, they started to complain about not having meat as food. They said they were so tired of eating manna, they complained about the provision that was given to them by God! So God gave them what they ask for. He gave quails so many that they have ebough of it for a month. He gave the people a lot of meat they hated it in the end. Because that is what God wants them to feel, He became mad that ” while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague” (verse 33). To relate that in the present time here are some points I derived from it, based on my own experience:

1. We obey God at the start- especially when provisions are new. We just had our new car, new house and our business is picking up great.

2. Then we start to complain – when our neighbor gets the newest car model and the likes. When we feel that we’re getting less. Like how they complain about the manns, we want more, we want “meat”, more money, greater job, newest car, a mansion. That we tend to forget that God is the provider, that we have to make all the things that we have prosper first and that God certainly knows what to do.

He wants the best for us, of course. But we also have to show obedience first and be thankful on what we have first and then if He sees we can be trsted with greater things then He will give us His best. Sadly, I am like that, I keep on complaining about my job now, I want something new, I want a business. I forgot that God provided this for me and this is where He puts me. I just pray I can change my state of mind.

“God, give me a thankful and patient heart. Help me stop complaining and help me learn to trust you fully. Amen.”

post also in my Multiply site.