'Is the LORD among us, or not?
Exodus 17:7
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Do you sometimes feel as if life is too hard?
Perhaps you are having a day when everything seems to be difficult.
You are tired.
You are clumsy.
You break things, knock things over.
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Perhaps you need to be somewhere especially early in the day but everything seems to hold you up and take twice as long.
You feel oppressed by all the things that need doing, and you don't seem to have either the time, the energy or the mental space to deal with them.
Well, today as I read in Exodus 17 I sympathised with the Hebrews who were travelling from slavery and captivity in Egypt to the land God had promised them.
At this point they had been on their journey for a few weeks. Their home and familiar surroundings were far away. Long gone were their times of sitting by their pots of meat and eating 'bread to the full' (Exodus 16:3).
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They had experienced the terrors of a pursuing army, days of anxiety when no water was found, and days of hunger. And now they were eating a strange unfamiliar food, manna, the same every day, experiencing days of sleeping in unfamiliar territory, perhaps their belongings in a constant muddle, perhaps longing for a bath and a rest, longing to arrive at their destination, but perhaps fearful of what it might be like.
And now yet again they had nothing to drink.
Their tiredness, irritability and thirst all boiled over into uncharitable demands that Moses, their leader, gave them drink. Perhaps they were angrily thinking that having seen the miracles of God, why wasn't He helping them out now and giving them the water they needed.
They were blaming God.
Why was He making them suffer when it was in His power to relieve them? Their unrest was so extreme that they were becoming murderous, almost ready to stone Moses for bringing them there.
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Aren't we sometimes like this when we get into some sort of trouble, accident or knock something over? Don't we almost automatically try to blame someone for the problem?! How quick we can be to complain instead of thinking of all the blessings God has given us.
This morning I was like these Hebrews. I accidently knocked my bowl of sourdough levain out of the warm airing cupboard. It dripped all over the door, the floor, the hot water tank and cupboard space.
I wanted to blame somebody or something, but I could only blame myself. Then I felt frustrated that my tiredness was making me clumsy and careless - this is the second time this has happened - why hadn't I learnt! Why did it have to happen on a morning when I was expecting the gas safety check to be done and needed to get a move on with clearing the kitchen space?
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As I later reflected on the words of the Hebrews to Moses as they faced another dire situation of no water, 'Is the LORD among us, or not?' I thought about my morning so far - were my earlier thoughts and frustrations (of which I have only shared a few!) subconsciously blaming the LORD? Was I looking at my life and saying, 'Is the LORD with me or not?'
This makes me think - we may believe and trust that the LORD is with us, but do our actions and reactions suggest otherwise?
When we consider those tired and travel worn Israelites in their complete life change can we recognise in them what is in ourselves?
These people had only known of the LORD for a little while - Moses had had to come back from exile with messages from God, telling them about Him - the one who was with their ancestors and they might have vaguely heard of - they had consequently made huge changes in their lives in trust of what He had promised He would do in delivering them from slavery and taking them to a new land of prosperity and abundance.
In a few months they had experienced more drama and hardship than most of us will see in our whole life time.
Perhaps we have only been following the Lord as Christians for a short while. We are new to the Christian journey. We are babes in faith, in learning more about God, His promises, His love to us and our own nature.
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But now - I was going to say, let us quit making excuses for them and for ourselves - but this is not the attitude of our Heavenly Father who remembers that we are made from the dust and is full of compassion!
God knows that we are sinners, fragile, our days are like the flowers in the field which spring up, and flourish and then the wind blows and they are gone and forgotten, changeable as the weather, prone to forgetting, ingratitude and unbelief.
God is so longsuffering and patient with us. Should we not be so with ourselves and each other? We have days when we cannot physically do it all, when we have had a bad night or extra demands made on us and we feel our limitations.
Yet, whilst being compassionate with ourselves and in our considerations of the Hebrews here we would not condone sin. What great, great miracles and wonders they had seen. What fulfilment of God's promises so far. Only a few weeks before they were all singing the LORD's praises:
'The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God...Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:2,11).
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What a contrast with the harsh words of the present, 'Is the LORD among us, or not?
It seems all their praises were forgotten. Changeable as the wind, their new devotion to God was gone. Fickle and inconstant. That's what we are like! When all is going well, how easy it is to trust and praise God, but when He starts to test us or things get difficult we start to doubt, distrust and accuse Him.
We forget all that we have seen God do for us and act as if he will now let us down, as if He isn't with us. Our overwhelm, mood and circumstances seem to block out our memories and reduce our faith. We question and grumble, 'Is the LORD among us, or not?' and are perhaps ready to take things into our own hands.
I sat and prayed that God would change my mindset - that HE would remove the 'woe is me' blaming, frustrated, self-pity attitude. How we need to be forgiven for giving our loving Saviour, who gave His life for His people, the cold shoulder.
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Let us pray for grace to be patient with ourselves when our limitations and mistakes frustrate us.
Let us pray for faith and forgiveness when it seems that everything is against us and we start to think God isn't helping us.
And let us pray to remember that God will never leave His people - He sees all our mishaps and troubles, He calls us to lean on Him, to go to Him for much needed patience and strength.
Does it all seem too hard, too difficult and too much for you today?
May you know the love and support of a dear Heavenly Father caring for you. May you feel the love of your Saviour, who tells you to tell Him all your troubles, who understands what it is like to experience all the difficulties of life. May the Holy Spirit fill your tired heart with praises and gratitude to your God.
'Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ' (Ephesians 5:19,20).
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