Photo by Rodolfo Cuadros on Unsplash

Dear Saints,

I’m sure we’ve all had at least one of those days … The alarm goes off and we don’t hear it.  Then we find out we forgot to get the coffee pot ready the night before.  Traffic is a bear.  People at work and school are all in terrible moods.  All day long … complaining, griping, and whining seem to be the order of the day.  It’s one of those days!  Ugh … what do we do?!

We hear about one of those days in Moses’ life in Numbers 11:4-29.  Moses has been “privileged” by God to lead His people, Israel, out of Egypt.  Sounds like a great honor.  However, often it was anything but … on this day the entire people complained in unison that they were sick and tired of manna, “We want meat!”  They longed for the good old days when they had all they wanted to eat … for free!  They forgot about the other costs … beatings from slave drivers, increased production demands without time and materials, prohibitions on worshiping God, and so on … “Ah, the good old days!”  Moses was at his wits end.  He cried out too. “Why have You (God) dealt ill with (me)? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You lay the burden of all this people on me?” (Numbers 11:11) His complaint is a prayer … Moses cries to the one person, God, who can help.  Knowing God put him here, Moses cries out, trusting God will help.  And God does, though not in the way Moses asked.

First, God gets Moses some help.  He gathers 70 elders to help Moses in his work.  Moses is still the leader, but now he has assistants, whom God has also called, to help him.  Then, though we don’t hear that part of the story this morning, God gives the people what they ask for … meat … lots of it (Numbers 11:31-35).  More quail than you can possibly imagine suddenly appears.  They greedily snatch up all they can handle … at least 10 bushels per person.  They lustily begin devouring it … but they did so forgetting God’s already gracious provision of manna, all they needed for their journey to the Promised Land.  So God, once again ignored by His people, punished them for rejecting bountiful His gifts of freedom, food, and water.  This wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last time Moses had “one of those days.” (e.g. Numbers 12, 14, 16, 20, and 21).  Each time, Moses prayed.

When we have one of those days, it’s okay to let God know you’re not happy.  Even Jesus, on occasion, let His Father know He was having a bad day and didn’t like what was going on … asking Him to help (Mark 14:35-36).  When we go to the one person who can help, God … it’s called prayer.  It’s a sure sign that we trust Him, above all others, to help us out.  James writes, “Pray for one another … the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:16) When we have “one of those days,” God wants us to come to Him for relief … and He will provide.

                                                                                                In Christ’s Love,

                                                                                                         Pastor Jim