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An Exodus People: Becoming God's Community of Faith and Freedom
Stop Your Complaining
Numbers 11
by R. Todd Bouldin
Any prayer that begins with the words “If only” is very dangerous. The greatest danger is that you may receive what you are craving. How will you explain your unhappiness then?
Prayer - O God, open our hearts to all the gifts of today, even the burdens that You call us to bear, that we may not waste our lives searching for the joy that is found only in the day we have. Amen.
When the Hebrews left Egypt they brought with them a group of people the Bible calls “the rabble.” The rabble were not true believers in this journey or in the God who called them to it. In Cecil B. DeMille’s movie, “The Ten Commandments,” the rabble were personified in the character played by Edward G. Robinson. Every time the going got tough in the desert, he was the guy who kept saying, “Yeah, Moses, where is your God now?” And then a riot would break out. It’s Oscar Sunday, so let’s watch a clip [movie clip].
The tolerance of the rabble for discomfort was low, and their capacity for complaint was high. Nothing is more infectious or deadly to spiritual community than complaining. It doesn’t take much to get everyone worked up into a lather of anxiety. This complaint is the theme of Numbers 11 - 25, the theme of rebellion and complaint. That is why the first three verses of chapter 11 are generic and do not mention a specific complaint – they set up what will be a long list of complaints, and God’s punishment for them. In Numbers 13 the complaining will get so bad that God will declare that the current generation will wander around in the wilderness until every one of them is dead and decaying in the sand. Our text tells us, “The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also went up again and said, ‘If only [there it is] we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for 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 manna to eat.’” (Numbers 11:4).
We were introduced to manna a while ago on this journey. We noted that it was a small bread-like substance that looked like snow, and it appeared every morning in the desert. It wasn’t much: just enough to keep the people alive; but it was enough, and it came directly from the hand of God as a gift of grace. But what comes after manna? As Carol Bechtel has put it: "Numbers is all about life after grace." What kind of people will they become after grace?
You may remember that a literal translation of the name manna is “What is it?” So every day the people nurtured their faith with daily bread – a bit at a time, asking the question, “What is it, Lord? What is it that you are doing? What is it that you are making of us?” It was faith learned on a hard slow road where every day is a small step towards the Promised Land. But there were no quick solutions or immediate satisfactions. In fact, there were not many answers to the question. And that’s how it is on the journey of faith. You don’t get a lot of answers. Mostly, you get a lot of questions, which make room for faith. Choosing to believe despite the questions is how faith is formed. We keep feeling that we must give answers to people who have questions. But if we could give an answer to every question, there would be no need for faith. It is our unanswered questions, and our unanswered cravings, that make room for faith.
It is the “only if” that undermines our faith, and that is what the rabble wants from us. We hear them say, “If only we had meat. If only we were still back in Egypt. If only we didn’t have to keep settling for questions. Why don’t we have some answers?” When we hear that, the faith that once allowed us to see the Presence of God and the daily nurture of God starts to dim.
How many times do we hear ourselves saying, “If only”? Sometimes we use it because we are focused on the future: “If only I could get a better job.” “If only I could find someone special in my life.” “If only I had my health back.” “If only I had my husband (or wife) back.” “If only I could retire early, then I would be ok.” “If only the church had more money.” Speaking these words preoccupies us with either the future or the past. It assures you that your happiness lies in those places, which implicitly defines your present life by what is missing. Thus, “if only” words are always a judgment upon the present day, which is the only day you have, and the only place where joy can be found.
Our society is moving so quickly that we are in danger of losing the present tense. In just a few generations, we went from traveling by horseback to jet airplanes. Our computers move so fast that we have to speak about nan o-seconds, because a second is no longer a short enough unit of measurement. Our children are hustled from one lesson and ball practice to another with breakneck speed. We receive so much news that we cannot process it all, and the news of yesterday is old news. Psychologically, this has the effect of reducing the present tense to being nothing more than an anticipation of the rapidly approaching future. In past generations, the present lingered longer, and faded into the future. Today the past is much less prescriptive, and the future is much less predictable, and the present barely exists at all.
Now we cannot undo what we have become, but we must be aware that this disappearance of the present is fraught with danger. When the present tense disappears, so does the manna. The mysterious, life-giving, sufficient grace of God only comes in the day you have. If you miss that day while you are dreaming about the future, or longing for the past, your soul will never find its only source of nurture and will never survive the desert journey. Without the ability to see what God is doing today we are always anxious, never at home, never joyful.
Limiting God’s work in your life to the past or to the future will cause you to miss what God is doing in your present. You should not reduce Jesus to an historical figure who sacrificed His life for your sins, because that limits His salvation to being nothing more than providing a second chance people who are still on their own. It also limits the work of God to sin management, or just erasing the past. But neither can you limit the work of God to the future or what He will do to get you to heaven. Everything the Bible says about the past and the future is meant to help you live better today.
Jesus rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven. Through The Spirit who proceeds from The Father and Son, Jesus continues His manna-salvation today. Again, like manna, the salvation of God in Jesus Christ in your life today, and in our world, has more questions to it than answers. But when we begin a day by asking, “What is it, Jesus, You are going to do in this day?” we open our eyes to His Presence with us in the present. Then we are not made anxious by the rabble.
The most dangerous rabble are not the complaining people around us but the rabble in our own hearts. It is as if there is an Edward G. Robinson living in each of us tempting us to be anxious and to wish we were somewhere besides where we are right now. There are many voices in our hearts, so we have to choose which voice we will hear. This is why we should begin our day in prayer and Bible study, hearing the voice of God rather than the voice of the rabble. It really is a decision about which craving you will satisfy – your craving for God or all of the other cravings that makes your heart feel discontent with the present moment that God has given to you.
You can choose to listen to the other cravings, but here is the scary part: God will honor your choices. When the people insisted that they were sick and tired of living by daily regimens of manna and were looking for something meatier, God said, “Fine. You want meat? I’ll give you meat, until it comes out of your nostrils.” (Numbers 11:20). Then He sent hoards and hoards of quail, covering the ground with up to three feet of it, and people devoured the meat until they choked on it.
They finally got what they wanted, but it ended up killing them. That is the danger of listening to the voices of your cravings. When you finally get all of the “if onlys” and all of the things you thought would make you happy, you realize you are no happier after all. That is because contentment never is found in something waiting in the future. It is only found in the grace you have been given today. Until you learn how to receive today, you will never know how to receive tomorrow.
One of the hardest places to find any present tense contentment is when you are in leadership. It doesn’t matter if you are leading the nation, or a family, or a church. You soon grow exhausted listening to the complaints of those you are trying to serve. That is why the primary function of spiritual leadership is to give the complaints to God, rather than try to service them yourself.
Up to this point in the journey, Moses had been the model of spiritual leadership. When the people complained, he prayed, spoke to God, and God answered His request. When the people built a golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai too long, Moses interceded on their behalf and talked God out of consuming them. It was at that point when Moses was ready to hand these people back over to God, that God told Moses that he was the favored one of God, and that God would go with him (Exodus 33). But then the rabble got everyone going on the quail thing, and this time Moses snapped.
For a favored guy, he sure was feeling unfavored. In verse eleven, Moses asks God, “Why have You treated Your servant so badly, that You lay the burden of this people on me?” In verse twelve, he asks, “Am I their mother?” In verse thirteen he asks, “Where am I supposed to find meat for all these people?” In verse fourteen, “I am not able to carry this people.” In verse fifteen, Moses tells God that he would rather be dead than spend one more day in this lousy job. Clearly, this is a leader who has gone over the edge and has burned out trying to save the people.
When you’re in leadership, it is tempting to think your job is to rescue the people and get the people to the Promised Land. But that is just another “if only” phrase that places your calling in the future. It is God’s job to get your people, or your family, or your church to the Promised Land. Your job isn’t to rescue the people you are given to lead. Your job is to lift their burdens up to The Savior and to love the people as they are today. Your prayer places the people’s complaint into the heart of God.
That is the task of a leader, and particularly shepherds. Our congregation is involved in a process of selecting the elders who will lead us for the next five years. The task of these elders will not be to serve complaints or to solve them. Their calling will be to listen to our joys and our laments, to bring them before God, and to ask that God provide His manna for our needs. Now that is a privilege and honor, not a burden. I want to encourage some of you who are inclined to initially resist this service because you don’t want to listen to complaints or make hard decisions. If that is what you find yourself doing as an elder, then something has gone wrong. You will hear the complaints, but your calling is to take them into the Presence of God, not always to resolve the problem. That is a high calling. But it takes a unique person who won’t “own” every complaint or try to rescue us from every craving. A person who will intercede for us before God, a person who will continually lead us back into the Presence and provision of God – that is the kind of leader we need.
As Moses eventually discovered, God will let you quit if you continue to insist that you would be happy “if only” you could stop leading. Moses wasn’t with the Hebrews on the day they finally crossed the Jordan and entered the Promised Land. But it didn’t make him as happy as he thought it would. It never does.
Whether you are a leader or follower, “if only” will kill you. It all comes down to whether you will trust in the gracious hand of God to give you and the people you lead what you need for today.
The chapter ends with corpses littering the camp. The place came to be called “The Grave of Craving.” Getting bored with grace so that your craving is for anything but the gift of God is a deadly enterprise. You can feast for a while on what you craved. But your cravings will eventually choke you. Your dreams and your cravings will die in the desert sand, and you will never enter the Promised Land.
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