No Complaint, your Lordship!

Friends, sometimes I struggle with understanding the trial that I face and sometimes wonder why I am still going through it, and when will it come to an end. 

    When I considered the experiences of the children of Israel and how prone they were to rebellion I don't count myself lucky but I find myself thanking God for mercy and the example of His word.

    For forty years the children of Israel were led in the wilderness. This reassures us that our wilderness experiences are not in the absence of God, but an experience where the strong sense of God's presence guards us.

"Your clothes and sandal on your feet did not wear out"

"You did not eat bread or drink wine or beer-- so that you might know that I am Yahweh your God."

They defeated kings in battles, possessed lands, exercised ownership, and gave land as an inheritance.

The idea that 'I am just going through" has no ground, as it is a form of complaint and lack of trust in God.

1 Corinthians 10 tells of "Old Testament Examples" so that we do not fall into similar enticing sins against God. Verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 10 states, "nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (NIV). Other translations describe this as murmuring, grumbling, and discontent.

    I would like for us to take a few minutes and reflect on our lives individually and collectively as a family, and see how we can make the determination that God is in our story, that God has most certainly been present in every area of our lives. 

Let me give you some examples, a day did not pass when we had no food to eat, heat to warm us, the light didn't get cut off, the transportation didn't break down, you were still employed in a pandemic when businesses we closing, you didn't lose your home in the recession, you were clothed, you ran and were not weary, you walked and did not faint, and the list goes on. Certainly, these are sufficient reasons to give God thanks and praise.

    I beckon us to a place where we have an attitude of thankfulness to God who led us, who provided, sustained, healed and loved us through our wilderness experiences. Unlike our ancestors, we refuse to become a statistic and die in our wilderness experience! However, we chose to take a stand fully armored in Christ; so that we triumph by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. (Revelation 12:11) "We won't complain!"