Moaning in the Desert

Bleak, dry ground extending 
to every horizon, 
sun beating down—no shelter, 
no way to move forward 
but step by tired step, 
feet filthy, sore. 
No food! I just scraped 
the last dried scraps 
from my shoulder bag. 
My children are crying: 
where are we going? 
where is home? not here! 
Is there really a promised land? 

We saw what our God did:
he shoved our angry enemies
into roaring waters. They’re gone.
But all we see before us
is desperation!
My friends say so too.
We groan. Hold hands.
Did Yahweh save us
just to laugh while we cry,
stranded out in nowhere?
Our leaders have lost it.
They took us from our homes!
Sure, we struggled there too
but we had food to eat!
Now all we see is desert. 
Deserted. Hope gone.

What? They say to turn,
to face over there,
to come near to Yahweh!
How can that be? Oh wow! 
That cloud we followed
just lit up like a blaze!
What is going on?
Now they tell us we’ll be
eating all we want
when the sun goes down
and breakfast will be served!
Really? Out here in the dust?
And yet—look—it’s happening!
Unbelievable! But oh so real!
Yahweh is here after all,
even in this bleak desert!
       (cf Exodus 16)

Sure, the Israelites were grumbling. They had just run through a crazy path in the Red Sea with a wall of water towering each side of the wet sand. The Egyptian army was coming! It must have been exhausting, especially for women with children. Then there had been the huge sigh of relief when Yahweh did that miracle and crashed the water walls down on the enemy. They were finally safe! Miriam led the celebration!

After that they walked three days without finding water to drink. And the one source they found was Marah, “bitter”. Another miracle: God told Moses to throw a certain tree in the water, and wow! it was drinkable. Then yet more trudging, with rest at a lovely oasis, but they were told to move forward again. Now no end was in sight. The world around them was becoming increasingly dry and barren. Ah, the “Wilderness of Sin” it was called. And the people sinned.

Worn out, hungry, with no idea of how much longer this was going to go on, they grumbled and cast blame on their leaders, who said they were following Yahweh’s orders. I probably would have grumbled too. There was no map, no end in sight, no rest stops, nowhere to get supplies. Did Moses and Aaron really know what they were doing?

Then, speaking through those two men, their God Yahweh answered them.

⁹ Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.'” ¹⁰ And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. ¹¹ And the LORD said to Moses, ¹² “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.’”  (Exod. 16:9-12 ESV)

Now that was the first time that they had been told to come near to Yahweh! And he showed them visually that he was present, lighting up the pillar of cloud that that they’d been following. He truly is the God who loves being with his people. A verse that has influenced me all my life is this one:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (Jas. 4:8a ESV)

What Yahweh promised the wanderers must have seemed impossible: dinner and breakfast  for thousands of people there in the wilderness. But he did do what he had said: he sent a flock of quail huge enough to fill each Hebrew’s hungry stomach, and in the morning he rained down “bread” no one had ever seen before. They named it “what is that stuff?” (manna). And in spite of not having had anything provided for them until that evening and morning, they were now being tested. Did they trust Yahweh to provide manna again the next day too? He said that they had to trust him—if they gathered more than their family needed, it would rot. A test of faith it was indeed!

We may find ourselves in a place of similar testing. Will the Lord actually make a way through the wilderness? One of my childhood songs comes to mind:

My Lord knows the way through the wilderness,

all I have to do is follow!

Faith for today is mine all the way

and all that I need for tomorrow!  (Sidney E. Cox)

Trust in God’s promise to guide us is something he teaches us as we follow him. To learn it, we have to practice it, stepping out in faith that he will provide what is needed. It’s easy to just recite The Lord’s Prayer without realizing that even there he was teaching us all to depend on him for “our daily bread.”

In order to demonstrate their trust that Yahweh would keep sending manna each day, the Israelites were forbidden from hoarding. They were not even allowed to save up for just one more day (except when the next day was Sabbath), and as day after day Yahweh came through with bread from heaven, they learned to let go of their need to do everything for themselves. “Let go, and let God!”

The Israelites had already seen God Yahweh destroy the enemies that intended to kill them. Their trust in his promise to bring them safely into the land he had prepared for them would be tested over and over, even after arriving there.

That kind of trust is a challenge for us, too, but Jesus made it clear that we need to trust our Father in heaven to be our provider and our rescuer. Another line of The Lord’s Prayer makes that clear:

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matt. 6:13 NET)

While they tramped through the wilderness the Hebrews were on a long learning curve, getting to know this amazing God who had saved them from slavery and slaughter,  and who could feed them and give them water while they walked for years—no road, no way to know the future. But he did it, and the story was written down to teach us the same lessons. Our God is trustworthy; what he says he will do, he will do. It may not be the next day. Or even the next year. But we are not to doubt his goodness and dissolve in grumbling. The evil one would be very happy with that! Instead:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. ⁶ Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight. (Prov. 3:5,6 NET)

Putting these threads together, this is how we must grow in our intimacy with God and trust him. The context of that special verse in James gives perspective: we not only need to draw near, but repent and turn around, living wholeheartedly for our Lord.

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  (Jas. 4:1 ESV)

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (Jas. 4:8 ESV)

We might feel like no end is in sight. There is one way to rest and to trust:  we  must count on our Sovereign God Yahweh to come through!