We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” Numbers 11:5-6 ESV
The illusion of recalling small delicacies made them forget their bondage, suffering and prayers for deliverance. Their longing for meat caused them to discount both the mighty miracle of the Red Sea as well as the daily miracle of manna. Just as the children of Israel grumbled about missing the food of Egypt, we must be careful of our own heart’s ungodly longing for things of our past life. In the same way we must be careful, not to miss God’s miraculous in His ordinary means of grace. The sameness of every breath and each heartbeat may lull us into complacency and ingratitude for the astonishing beauty of another sunrise, another meal shared with a loved one, another walk through our neighborhood or trip to the grocery store. We long for fireworks, excitement and the spectacular, yet God reveals His greatest beauty in small sparrows, golden lilies of the field and His ordinary miracles of grace!
Today’s Prayer: Lord Jesus, may we truly come to see you where we are, sitting right here and right now in exactly the place where you have chosen for us to be this morning. Tune our ears to hear your voice and our voice to sing your praise, for the ordinary miracle of grace given us daily through Jesus Christ our Lord!
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
Psalm 10:17-18 ESV
When we are in trouble, we often busy ourselves in an attempt to find a solution or waste valuable time complaining to others. But while we are rushing around trying to fix things on our own, we forget to simply put our trust in God and ask for His help. Talking about prayer without actually doing it, when we are in a crisis, is like talking about a life jacket, without putting it on after we have fallen overboard! I love that today’s verse, comes at the end of a prayer which King David began in verse one in which he starts by saying. “Why are you so far away?” and “Why are you hiding Yourself?” When we are in trouble, David’s prayer is a great model for us to follow. Notice, he doesn’t start out by mouthing some lifeless, holy sounding words. He tells God exactly how he feels! If you read through the Psalms, you will discover that, not all of them are, “The Lord is my Shepherd” kind of prayers. In fact, complaining to God is actually one of David’s favorite things and God included those prayers of lament because He wanted us to know, that He is listening and that He hears us when we cry out to Him.
First, David begins by being specific in his complaints. As we move on through the next several verses, we find that he doesn’t waste time by just saying, “Everybody hates me, I guess I just go eat worms.” No! David itemizes the things about which he is ticked off and honestly tells God about them. “The wicked is pursuing the poor…the wicked is boasting of his desires…His mouth is filled with cursing…He says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten.” When David does get to the end of his laundry list of issues in verse fourteen, he takes a deep breath and moves on to requests.
Then, David doesn’t pray like we sometimes do – “Bless all the missionaries or bring revival to our nation.” Those are great sounding prayers, but “Rescue the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram or heal my grandchild who is suffering with kidney disease”, are the kind of specific requests, that David prays believing God for specific answers. “Break the arm of the wicked… call his wickedness to account… hear the desire of the afflicted… strengthen their heart.” If you are like me, you may find that writing your requests down will help you to stay on track. Every few weeks when I update my list, I am amazed at how many prayers that God has answered. That brings us to the kind of prayer in today’s verse: specific praise.
Finally, just as we need to be specific when we complain and when we ask for help, God loves it when we are specific when we praise Him. “God is good all the time.” is kind of okay, but “God You were so good when you healed my wife! It was amazing when you brought our mission team home safely from Africa!” and ” Thank you that my granddaughter is getting baptized this week!” are ways of bringing us right into the throne room of God. God does hear, when we cry, but He is interested most in building a true personal relationship with us. A strong relationship with God is forged when we really talk to him as we would to a friend. We tell Him exactly how we are feeling, what are needs are (daily bread), every sin we are sorry for, every commitment we are ready to make, and then give Him praise because we know that He is listening and we trust that He is in control!
In distress you called, and I delivered you; answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah Psalm 81:7 ESV
The Bible makes it quite clear that God will never tempt us or even allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to deal with it. However the scriptures are equally as clear that God does test us. He is our Good Teacher as well as our Savior and our teacher often hands out pop quizzes. In the Old Testament the children of Israel had their first test at the Red Sea and when they cried out in fear God answered, parted the waters and destroyed the Egyptian army. On reaching the safety of the far shore they had a celebration of the great victory God gave them. But just a little over a month later God set up another test for them. He had Moses lead them out from the nice oasis of Elim which came complete with springs and palm trees to a desert place called Meribah, which in Hebrew means complaining or strife. Remember that only thirty days had passed since God had miraculously parted the Red Sea. And what did they do? Pretty much the same as we do when things aren’t going right – they complained. I do not know about you who are my readers in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or Europe but I can attest that we Americans (myself included) are professional complainers. We complain about politics, money, culture, our own family and sadly even our pastors. We invent so many excuses for our weeping and wailing that I often wonder how God puts up with us. Why would He be even interested in such spoiled brats as we sometimes are? The good news is that He not only tolerates us, but He willingly and gently tests us to help us grow. You see while the children of Israel were busy belly aching about God’s travel plans, He was busy preparing to show them a miracle. He told Moses to get the people together in front of a huge rock. Maybe the muttering of the crowd stilled a bit as the people craned their necks to see what Moses was doing. They couldn’t imagine why they were gathered in front of a big rock. “How is this going to make things any better?” they wondered. Then God instructed Moses to take his staff, the same one he had held over the Red Sea when it parted and use it to strike that rock. As Moses obeyed a loud crack was heard and it split wide open and amazingly fresh beautiful water flowed out!
What a wonderful picture of the cross. Maybe because of our tendency to complain and doubt, Jesus told us to remember His death each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Jesus knows how easy it is for us to start complaining, and yet instead of giving us the punishment which we so richly deserve, He allows the blow of the staff of the law to fall across His own shoulders. He was pieced for our miserable complaining and unbelief and from His side flowed a healing stream of blood that quenches our thirst in a way that no water on earth could do. What a wonderful Savior we serve! What a blessed and gentle Teacher. He brings us through the times of testing at the rock so that we can learn and believe and walk closer than ever by His side!
praise2worshipdotnet 
You must be logged in to post a comment.