In the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel get a bad press (Exodus is the second book of the Bible, concerned mainly with the Israelites being led out the land of Egypt). Click for Link.
Moses then proceeds to
make himself and the People of Israel so offensive to the Egyptians that they
get thrown out of Egypt. Actually, quite a lot happens on the way, so you need
to read the story yourself.
As if this were not
enough, far from going straight to the promised land, they end up being trapped
between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea (of “Moses and the Red Sea” fame –
yes, the very same), and threatened with annihilation. “Are there not enough
graves in Egypt…..?” seemed a reasonable and eloquent response to this. As it
turned out, they were not annihilated, and the Egyptian army was drowned instead.
(Exodus 14)
And instead of the
Promised Land, the next stop was the desert. There was nothing to eat. Had God
brought them to the desert to starve them to death? Plenty of moaning and
general protesting to Moses was required before a proper regular supply of food
was provided. (Remember “Manna from heaven”?) (Exodus 16)
No sooner had they got
the water sorted out, than a local tribe attacked them. Pretty frightening, but
with Moses praying to God, locals were defeated.
So it all goes to
prove that unless you moan and groan and generally complain to God, nothing
much happens. I am not sure if that was the intended lesson from these four
encounters, but the people of Israel certainly saw it that way. Still, I expect
that moaning to God is better than not talking to Him at all, especially if you
have not been in the practice of recognising God’s hand (or even His existence).
Now I admit that it
all then got a bit out of hand when Moses went up to the top of Mount Sinai to
collect the ten commandments and plenty of other ceremonial and moral laws. He
was gone longer than expected, so the People of Israel decided that Moses had
been a big illusion and proceeded forthwith to make a “Golden Calf” their God. (Exodus32) How anyone can think that something they have
made is “God” is quite beyond me (and was quite beyond Moses as well). I think
that the People of Israel would have said something like “Well, every other
tribe has one”.
Perhaps they had gone
too far this time with their moaning and groaning.
It all came to a
pretty pass some time later, when God showed them the Promised Land and they
decided that it was just too difficult. Well, some people never learn. The
result of all this was that they tramped around the desert for 40 years, until
they had dies out and the next generation was ready to carry on. (Number 14)
Now the point of all
this is that I am on the side of the moaners, at least for some of the time. It
takes a few demonstrations of God’s ability for the point to get through to His
People (or, in the case of the People of Israel, not to get through). Actually
the Old Testament shows us that they never really got the point at all, which
is quite astonishing really.
Even more astounding
is that God never gave up on them, not because he thought “they had it in them”
if He just gave them one more chance. Rather it is in His nature not to give
up.
Personally, I think
that having a good moan from time to time is warranted. After all, we do not
ask to get into some of the earthly scrapes that we end up in, especially when
we think that we are on course generally. (Was Lack of Faith Rewarded? click forlink)
