I thought about this when I was reading my Bible this morning. I was reading how God sent bread from heaven to feed the Israelites. Do you know why he sent bread to them every morning? He did it because they had been grumbling, angrily I might add, against Moses and Aaron. These ingrates were about ready to hang their two leaders. If you have ever been a pastor you probably understand how Moses and Aaron felt. But doesn’t it seem strange that God would, in a sense, reward the Israelites because of their grumbling? These crazy people were wishing that they had stayed in Egypt as slaves. They said, “At least we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but now you have brought us into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Does that sound familiar?
A pastor or some church leaders decide to make a change, or begin a new ministry, or add something new to some area of the church. Those who disagree grumble. The moment something goes wrong somebody begins to grumble. They start spreading the word, “That pastor is trying to ruin our church. He is going to drive people away. He’s out to get us. Why did we ever call him!” Grumble, grumble, grumble. I’ve worked with a lot of pastors in a lot of churches and I have never know a single one who was trying to destroy the church. The pastor is not the enemy. In my last church the person who grumbled the most never heard me preach once in the three and half years I was there. As soon as Sunday school was over she went home. That was the extent of her church participation, unless she came to a business meeting to attack somebody. Yet, she was upset with everything that was done.
Well God had a reason for keeping the Israelites supplied with bread, and even meat which was quail that covered the ground in the evening. Moses made this announcement to all these grumblers, “And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we that you should grumble against us? You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord. ” Exodus 16: 7-8
God gave bread and meat every day so that the grumbling Israelites would know that he would provide everything they needed. He would take care of his chosen people because he loved them despite their grumbling. He wanted them to know who he was. He wanted them to stop their grumbling and trust him.
I wonder if it ever crosses the minds of the church grumblers that their grumbling may be against God? It may be that some of our difficult times when we don’t know what we are going to do are times that God wants us to come to him and ask him to provide what we need. It could be that he just wants us to show that we need to trust him and grow our faith. How often has grumbling helped? Does grumbling ever make us feel good?
The Israelites looked out into the desert and “There was the glory of God appearing in the cloud.” Maybe instead of grumbling we should look up and see the glory of God! God sent down that first batch of bread. It was like a wafer and tasted a bit like honey. The grumblers looked at it and they said, ”What is it?” No one knew what it was, nor did they know what it was called. So someone said, “Let’s call it manna”, which means ‘What is it’. Therefore, for forty years the Israelites ate “What is it?” I hear it tasted a lot like banana nut bread.
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