daily java

Daily Java:

Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. “If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”  (Exodus 16:1-3)

The Israelites had a point. God had told them to go into the wilderness to be delivered from slavery. But the problem was, were they being delivered from the fat into the fire? Was the delivery worse than the slavery?

It is easy to be down on the Israelites. But the problem was, they were afraid. They were out in the middle of nowhere and they were running out of supplies. What were they going to do?

God had promised to take care of them, but their children were beginning to get hungry. They had plenty of god and jewels and such, because the Egyptians had given them anything they wanted just to leave after the last plague, the death of all the Egyptian first born sons. But you cannot eat gold. What were they going to do?

So they turned on Moses. Since they couldn’t see or touch God, they held Moses responsible for all the things happening to them. That, of course, is the downside of being in charge. You get the blame as well as the credit.

They began to glorify their life in Egypt. They were slaves, ordered about by stern taskmasters, people who delighted in making their lives miserable. But they had enough (at least in their minds) to eat. Pots of meat, all the bread they could eat, a great life they had in Egypt. In between whippings, they had a wonderful time. In between 14 hour days making brick under deadline with not enough material, they were really happy. Sitting around full, content, happy.

That was all in their minds, of course. The reality of the good old days is always worse than the memory. But in their minds, it was strong. They were better off doing things the way they had done them before even though it wasn’t a good life.

The same thing happened a little further down in the chapter when they got thirsty. “Did you bring us out here to die?” they scream.

It is a truth that people are never happy. They always remember their past with fondness and their future with fear. It has always been like that.

I know things did not always go well for me as a young man, but I remember it as a good time for which, sometimes, I yearn to recover. I was strong, I was healthy, I had a lot of dark hair, my wife was healthy and pain free. But I forget the times we had such financial trouble, the problems that came up in a new marriage, all of the attendant difficulties that came with being young.

Would I go back? Yes, in a New York minute. Would I be happier? Probably not. I would have to face all these difficulties again.

Were the Israelites happy in Egypt? No, they were slaves under a brutal master. Would they be happier there than in the wilderness? No, because they would still be slaves under a brutal master. In the desert, even with its problems, they were a free nation.

That came with some problems, of course, some uncertainties, some difficulties, some fear. But it also came with the blessing of being God’s free nation.

I don’t think they ever figured this out. They went from being mad at God for not speaking enough, to being mad at his prophets for speaking Too much (at least in their viewpoint). They worshiped every idol in sight until God finally punished them by taking away their free country, then they worshiped his law trying to get it back.

They could never worship him, just simply accept him. And their national fear made them angry, lashing out at anyone who disagreed with them

A sad bunch of people.