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).
- To read more from Eyriam Visit follow4biblestudy.com and follow his musing and what i can olny assume in sports chatter on twitter!
- To read more from Eyriam Visit follow4biblestudy.com and follow his musing and what i can olny assume in sports chatter on twitter!
