Just for who He is.

The wilderness is a strange place. You sincerely love the idea of reaching the Promised Land one day, but you sorely miss the comforts of Egypt. And this seems to be a trait of human nature; we only miss the good old days when the present times aren’t so good. Ask the Israelites. Journeying through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land, they were quick to murmur against Moses and wish they were back in Egypt, “where they sat by flesh pots, and when they did eat bread to the full” (Exodus 16:3). 

True, the wilderness isn’t exactly the first place that comes to mind when we think of fun places to be, but you see, when God leads us into the wilderness and we murmur and yearn for the comforts of Egypt, we are essentially telling him “you should be able to do better, God. I don’t appreciate this. Anywhere but here Lord, anywhere but here.” And that is the sin of ingratitude. 

Well, it goes without telling that it stems from a lack of contentment.

Contentment; if we had a dollar for every time we’ve heard that word. But did you know that one of the major reasons God leads us through the wilderness is to school us in contentment?

I think back to 2011 all through to only a few months ago, and it’s only upon chronological sobriety that I realize that God was teaching me to be content; content in Him. Yes, I too was in a strange place. I remember going through a myriad of emotions; from the depression of thinking I had let God down by failing in my exams, to wanting to be sincerely happy for those mates of mine who had successfully made it to the university, but feeling hurt by the fact that I was not going to be a part of the number. Yes, I too missed the “good old days” and I wondered why God would willingly lead me into such a strange place. But I look back and realize I had no reason to fret. If I had been calmer, I would have realized (earlier) that, even though my “empire” of education had crumpled into dust, I still had God, the one who created this vast universe from nothing. I may have found myself in a strange place, but here was a God who created light out of darkness.

The debate between the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has continued long and unabated from Eden. Very often, especially during our wilderness journeys, we replay that one scene of standing before that tree and yearning for the forbidden fruit, because we’ve been told “in the day that you eat of this fruit, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god…” And we fall for it. It’s the reason we yearn for the comforts of the good times when we are being led by God Himself on a road to some place better than we can imagine. 

We fall for the enemy’s deception that there is more to life than the road we tread; there’s more to see; there’s more to experience; there’s more to enjoy. Apparently, our problem is that we aren’t satisfied with what God has got to give us; we want something else. Well, you can’t keep longing for Egypt and expect God to take you forward to the Promised Land.

At the end of our life journeys, each of us will look back and reflect on various lessons we learned along the way. The lessons of gratitude and sacrifice and faith and hope and love and trust; the lessons of valuing the people God brings our way. We will have realized the worth of living our lives in honor of our God. But we all will have learned the value of being content with whatever God gives us along the way. It’s the principle Jesus subtly teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer; “Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name… give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:9-13). We are only encouraged to ask for bread for the present day, and strength for the present time (Deuteronomy 33:25). Because you see, when you have learned to live on bread for today, and to manage strength for the present time, you would have learned to be content. And “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).


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